Would it be acceptable to “Rat” out a work colleague? 6 September 2022 at 1:27PM in Employment, jobseeking & training 16 replies 1.5K views

n1guy

Not sure how this would go down but I’m considering it.  The issue being small manufacturing firm, one guy in particulars only interested is getting overtime, he achieves this by bringing everything to a standstill and doing nothing.  Now me personally I hate overtime, I’ll do everything to avoid it which is why this is so frustrating as I can’t do anything, hence why I’m considering this option, I’m not sure my employer would appreciate this or not.  I’m there 10 years, him 30, he’s got much more leverage than me. Any advice? 

Jude57

I'm assuming that, as you work for a small firm, there's no HR nor regular one-to-one meetings with your manager where you could outline the barriers to achieving your personal productivity targets? 

What I don't understand is how, in a small firm, management don't know where the logjam is. If the manufacturing process halts at your colleague, it should be obvious. Surely they would rather the work was done at a pay rate of single time rather than time and a half or more?

It could be that they do know, but don't have the expertise to effectively performance manage the problem, nor to manage the shirker out of the door based on failure to perform, having given appropriate training, support, guidance and warnings. It's not difficult to do but most small firms are afraid of getting it wrong. Or perhaps your colleague has skills the firm thinks it can't afford to lose?

It comes down to whether you trust management not to tell your colleague you've complained, and trust them to actually do something about the situation. You should also consider whether, with the cost of living crisis as it is, you should be avoiding overtime that may not be offered in the foreseeable future.

n1guy

Jude57 said:

I'm assuming that, as you work for a small firm, there's no HR nor regular one-to-one meetings with your manager where you could outline the barriers to achieving your personal productivity targets? 

What I don't understand is how, in a small firm, management don't know where the logjam is. If the manufacturing process halts at your colleague, it should be obvious. Surely they would rather the work was done at a pay rate of single time rather than time and a half or more?

It could be that they do know, but don't have the expertise to effectively performance manage the problem, nor to manage the shirker out of the door based on failure to perform, having given appropriate training, support, guidance and warnings. It's not difficult to do but most small firms are afraid of getting it wrong. Or perhaps your colleague has skills the firm thinks it can't afford to lose?

It comes down to whether you trust management not to tell your colleague you've complained, and trust them to actually do something about the situation. You should also consider whether, with the cost of living crisis as it is, you should be avoiding overtime that may not be offered in the foreseeable future.

I don’t mind overtime if it’s genuinely needed for a few weeks/days not if it a result of someone purposely doing nothing to achieve it.  I did it every day for 18 months, I don’t want to do that again. It only stopped because of the COVID situation. No HR, I think the boss knows but is simply to scared to say anything

sienew

I'd very casually mention it to the boss/owner.

theoretica

Seems like a situation where a pay rise could be in everyone's benefit - same amount paid overall in wages, same work done but in normal hours and no overtime.  Or perhaps bonuses for getting through the workload without overtime needed?

n1guy

theoretica said:

Seems like a situation where a pay rise could be in everyone's benefit - same amount paid overall in wages, same work done but in normal hours and no overtime.  Or perhaps bonuses for getting through the workload without overtime needed?

Great idea. Too bloody sensible that though. Bonuses are the ideal solution.

TBagpuss

Morally there is nothing wrong at all.

Practcally, you may do better if you can suggest a practical solution.

For example, if there is a bottle neck with this one individual, maybe raise that -
e.g.
"I've noticed that there seems to be a recurring issues where eveything is done up to Joe's station where the wdgets need to be sharpened, and that cuases a bottleneck as Joe is struggling to sharpen the widgets as fast as they come in, which results in all of us being asked to stay late to catch up.

Could you look at cross-training more of us to sharpen the widgets, or maybe moving Joe to a different station where his speed doesn't bring eveything else to a halt?"

If 'Joe' has even admitted that he deliberately slows things down or that he is keen on the overtime you could add something like ' I know Joe really likes being able to boost his pay with overtime, but  lot of us would prefer to be able to finish on time , which we could mostly do if there wasn;t this delay. Is it possible for you to work with Joe to ensure that he can do his normal job within working hours? If he is stuggling maybe you can look at adjusting his hours or moving him to a less demanding role, if he can't manage a normal days work?

In other words, you don't necesarily have to explicitly accuse Joe of deliberately not doing things in order to slow eveyone down but you are flagging up that there is an issue, that it's causing problems, and that you are asking management to address it..

(It is possible, of coruse, that he does have some form of health issue that means he genuinely needs more / longer breaks, but if that's the case, the there are better ways to address it that letting him slow eveyone else down, having another person help out for instnace, while he takes breaks.)

You could also talk to other colleagues and consider speaking to management as a group to ask them to look at ways to reduce the overtime needed so you can all work more reasonable hours. 

TELLIT01

TBagpuss' suggestion seems a good one.  You aren't accusing anybody of deliberately slacking but are raising an issue which requires addressing.  Once you have raised it, leave the subject alone completely.  I was in a situation where a staff member was spending far too much time on their phone during the working day.  This person was extremely knowledgeable about the job, and the 'go to' person to sort out problems with the systems used.  They knew they were in a position of strength and, to my mind, took the proverbial and got away with it.  The issue had been raised with management on numerous occasions by many people, but nothing ever changed.  When they left the manager even joked about the fact that they had told this individual to get off their phone, but they had been ignored.

Basically, if management know and do diddly squat about it, just take the overtime or say you aren't available.

n1guy

Thanks for the help and suggestions all.

Dakta

Where I currently work there seems to be a similar problem, however due to the nature of it it leaves an audit trail i.e tickets closed by who, and other workloads require one to verbally drop a message into a community chat each time one gets completed. Workloads are assigned to small teams dynamically and over a period of time I noticed there were a growing number of days where I'd be the only one verbally doing the latter. It wasn't to gain overtime just a case of if someone else will do the work wel let them.

I think ratting people out can be dangerous though obviously what's happening is wrong - in my case I used it in evidence to support consistent performance in a pay review backed with a dashboard which didn't name anyone but demonstrated the issue, however given management could see all this anyway it also just highlights their poor situational awareness. Gotta be careful 

Spendless

Is it possible he is naturally slower? Just picking up you saying he's been there 30 years, which makes him I'm guessing in his 50s or older? Wonder if he's not as nimble as he once was. Has it always been as issue during the time you've worked there or just more recently? Yes, fetch it to the management's attention, I think to offer a solution is a great idea.