My manager won't leave me alone on annual leave

eamon

I have a workplace laptop, tablet & phone all are turned of at the end of the work day and annual leave. Then again I'm not high up the food chain. The OP's employer really needs to get a grip.

lincroft1710

The benefits of modern technology and social media!


In the 1970s/80s and possibly later and earlier staff of all grades in the Civil Service dept I worked were required to give their holiday address if they were on leave for 5 days or more. This was illogical as even if they could contact you, it would be very difficult to force you to come back from your holiday ("no flights till next week, boss"). 


Once I left the address box blank on my leave application. Line manager asked for the address, "Devon" was the reply. "where in Devon?" "Don't know, nothing booked, start in the North move to East then South". "we'll put touring then". ON another occasion when staying in a room in a villa on a Greek Island, I had got confused over the name of the villa and put down the wrong one!


If you're on leave you're on leave! Management do not own you for 365 days a year.


 

lisyloo

TELLIT01 said:

There should be no need to contact staff who are on leave, even for 'urgent' matters.  It's the responsibility of management to ensure that there is adequate cover.  It is not acceptable to expect staff to provide that cover outside their contracted hours.

When the OP returns to work and has their 'chat', suggest to the manager that the provide them with a company mobile which they can leave at work unless specifically on-call.

Life isn't always that simple.
I work on complicated stuff and not everyone knows everything.
Fortunately my team are very supportive and we all help each other out.
It works both ways with flexibility and we don't take the mick. We'd only call someone on leave if we really had to and usually they have said we can.
we would never call anyone unnecessarily though.
In return I get flexibility and help back.

Soot2006

We've had to introduce a Right to Disconnect policy at my workplace after some employees found themselves under pressure from their line managers to respond despite annual leave. I'm on the senior management and we have made it very clear to all now that it is unreasonable of managers to expect any communication at all from people on annual leave and they should delay send on comms, etc. Employees are now better protected as they can safely ignore any comms, knowing they are protected by the policy.

So I think it's not unusual, unfortunately, but it is unreasonable of the employer!

Grumpy_chap

Gillian_4 said:

Can anyone advise?

I finished up Monday night on annual leave, I decide that due to my job I would mute all notification on social media, as this is how customers can contact us, I also muted our teamchat and my manager, he has messaged several times with nothing of importance and that due to me not responding, We will be having "chat" on return then provided to deleted me from out group chat.. 

I've responded late saying I have muted everything and will not be receiving notifications from messages sent to my personal phone, then tried to call me at 07.30... 

Is this normal, does anyone else have to put up with this? 

I know he will hold it against me for a long time coming but surely annual leave is annual leave??

Did the Manager actually know you were on annual leave?
They may "know" as a technicality, for example if they approved your leave form, or it is on a leave database somewhere, but to actually know in a practical way at the time can be quite different.

Something similar happened to me many years ago. 
I was on annual leave but something cropped up. 
My immediate Manager called, very apologetically, as they needed some documents and could not find them.  I explained where they were on my desk, but he said he could not find them.
It so happened I was literally driving past the office and was 10 minutes away, so I said "I'm right outside, I'll run in and grab the documents as it won't take any time".
My immediate Manager was ever so grateful.
When I returned from leave, I was called in to see the Director (my immediate Manager's boss's boss) who expressed his concern about my dress code and being in the office in jeans was unprofessional and could bring the company into disrepute etc etc.  
I laugh at these sorts of things, so rather than cutting the conversation off dead, I let the Director ramble on and deliver the full disciplinary spiel and all the stuff about he will have to consider formally reporting to HR etc.  It was a one-way lecture without my having any opportunity to speak until the very end when he concluded it would have to go forward and would be a black mark and he ended "before I submit this report I have written, do you have anything to say for yourself to explain" to which I responded "I was on leave but called in very briefly to assist my Manager in locating these forms, for which he was very grateful and it saved a lot of time for the business." 
The Director ripped up his notes in front of me and grumbled a gritted "thank you"

Is the OP's situation one that will end similar once the boss is reminded of being on annual leave?

Gillian_4

My manager authorised the Annual leave... Knew full well I was off and told me to enjoy my holiday, this was Monday... 
As a team we are able to cover each others job, I spent Monday clearing my jobs so that nothing was left or moved to when I return.

TELLIT01

lisyloo said:

TELLIT01 said:

There should be no need to contact staff who are on leave, even for 'urgent' matters.  It's the responsibility of management to ensure that there is adequate cover.  It is not acceptable to expect staff to provide that cover outside their contracted hours.

When the OP returns to work and has their 'chat', suggest to the manager that the provide them with a company mobile which they can leave at work unless specifically on-call.

Life isn't always that simple.
I work on complicated stuff and not everyone knows everything.
Fortunately my team are very supportive and we all help each other out.
It works both ways with flexibility and we don't take the mick. We'd only call someone on leave if we really had to and usually they have said we can.
we would never call anyone unnecessarily though.
In return I get flexibility and help back.

Sorry lissyloo, but it really should be that simple.  I only retired 6 years ago and for most of my working life I worked in IT support.  We had an on-call rota and I can only recall one occasion when I called anybody not on that rota.  Even then it was a call to a member of staff who had offered to handle a job if the need arose.  I repeat my previous comment that it is up to management to ensure they have cover in place for all roles, other than absolute emergencies.  Continually calling a staff member who is on leave, and that fact is known to the manager, simply indicates that the manager is incapable of doing their own job.

GingerTim

Join a union.

Ath_Wat

TELLIT01 said:

lisyloo said:

TELLIT01 said:

There should be no need to contact staff who are on leave, even for 'urgent' matters.  It's the responsibility of management to ensure that there is adequate cover.  It is not acceptable to expect staff to provide that cover outside their contracted hours.

When the OP returns to work and has their 'chat', suggest to the manager that the provide them with a company mobile which they can leave at work unless specifically on-call.

Life isn't always that simple.
I work on complicated stuff and not everyone knows everything.
Fortunately my team are very supportive and we all help each other out.
It works both ways with flexibility and we don't take the mick. We'd only call someone on leave if we really had to and usually they have said we can.
we would never call anyone unnecessarily though.
In return I get flexibility and help back.

Sorry lissyloo, but it really should be that simple.  I only retired 6 years ago and for most of my working life I worked in IT support.  We had an on-call rota and I can only recall one occasion when I called anybody not on that rota.  Even then it was a call to a member of staff who had offered to handle a job if the need arose.  I repeat my previous comment that it is up to management to ensure they have cover in place for all roles, other than absolute emergencies.  Continually calling a staff member who is on leave, and that fact is known to the manager, simply indicates that the manager is incapable of doing their own job.

Are you talking about a situation where a member of staff is the only person who actually knows something, though?

Of course you don't call people asking them stuff other people can do.  But if you have to call them to ask "where is the X" because they are the only person who knows where the X is, because they made the X, and without knowing that you can't do the job, and it takes them 2 minutes to respond, that is really not a problem for a lot of people.  It certainly isn't for me.  

TELLIT01

Ath_Wat said:

TELLIT01 said:

lisyloo said:

TELLIT01 said:

There should be no need to contact staff who are on leave, even for 'urgent' matters.  It's the responsibility of management to ensure that there is adequate cover.  It is not acceptable to expect staff to provide that cover outside their contracted hours.

When the OP returns to work and has their 'chat', suggest to the manager that the provide them with a company mobile which they can leave at work unless specifically on-call.

Life isn't always that simple.
I work on complicated stuff and not everyone knows everything.
Fortunately my team are very supportive and we all help each other out.
It works both ways with flexibility and we don't take the mick. We'd only call someone on leave if we really had to and usually they have said we can.
we would never call anyone unnecessarily though.
In return I get flexibility and help back.

Sorry lissyloo, but it really should be that simple.  I only retired 6 years ago and for most of my working life I worked in IT support.  We had an on-call rota and I can only recall one occasion when I called anybody not on that rota.  Even then it was a call to a member of staff who had offered to handle a job if the need arose.  I repeat my previous comment that it is up to management to ensure they have cover in place for all roles, other than absolute emergencies.  Continually calling a staff member who is on leave, and that fact is known to the manager, simply indicates that the manager is incapable of doing their own job.

Are you talking about a situation where a member of staff is the only person who actually knows something, though?

Of course you don't call people asking them stuff other people can do.  But if you have to call them to ask "where is the X" because they are the only person who knows where the X is, because they made the X, and without knowing that you can't do the job, and it takes them 2 minutes to respond, that is really not a problem for a lot of people.  It certainly isn't for me.  

There shouldn't be a situation where only one member of staff knows something unless it's something very new and not in operational use.  It is up to management to ensure that situation doesn't arise.  What would the company do if 'the only person that knows something' was taken seriously ill, was hit by the proverbial bus or left?