Ask Amy: on today's episode of HR is not your friend

[lemonsharks]

Dear Amy: I have managed many work teams throughout my professional career and enjoy it very much. I generally try to find the good in each employee, appreciate their strengths, and accommodate individual personality quirks in order to foster a culture of tolerance in order to accomplish team goals.

However, one employee’s “quirk,” is increasingly irritating to me. She does not ask permission to take time off, but instead tells me when she’ll be taking time off. This happens for advanced-notice vacation time as well as short-notice emergency time. For example, she recently texted me in the morning, that she would be leaving at 1:00 p.m. that day.

This employee does excellent work. She is friendly, reliable, competent, and does not abuse her earned paid leave time.

Am I being too sensitive? Am I wrong in thinking that employees should respectfully ask their supervisors for permission to take time off? (I have never denied an employee time off.)

Should I let it go because she’s such a great employee? I don’t want to upset her, but I find this practice annoyingly passive-aggressive.

I also don’t think it’s fair to other employees who ask my permission to take time off.

– Miffed Manager

Dear Miffed: If your employee declares to you when she is taking time off and you are worried about being “too sensitive,” as well as the prospect of “upsetting her,” then I’d say she has you right where she wants you.

Do you have a company policy about scheduling (non-emergency) time off? If not, then you should enact one. Here is some sample language for PTO (paid time off): “To take PTO requires two days of notice to the supervisor and Human Resources unless the PTO is used for legitimate, unexpected illness or emergencies.”

And then you should enforce it.

The way to enforce your policy is to do what my various managers have done over the years: make your policy clear to all the employees, and, if this one employee continues to violate it, deal with her directly.

By all means, highlight her positive contributions to the company, and let her know that being a great worker also compels her to adhere to the guidelines that each employee is expected to follow.

Comments

[lemonsharks]

I’d say [your employee] has you right where she wants you

I would like to send a big ol "F YOU" to both the LW and Amy, here.

Because the employee is doing a couple of things here:

She is presuming that her life outside work is equally important to her as work.

She is presuming that she deserves to be treated like a person.

She is treating her PTO as a right, which it absolutely is.

And she is putting the manager in a position to having to find a reason to deny her request that is more meaningful than an arbitrary "sorry but I think we'll need you in the office."

This employee is my fuckin' HERO, and this workplace needs a union yesterday.

[minoanmiss]

Dear LW and AMy: why? are there any actual reasons for these rules besides wanting the employees to grovel and beg for permission to live their lives? Has this employee caused any issues whatsoever with her absences? Or is this just about cossetting a manager's ego?

Dear Employee: ROCK ON.

[teaotter]

Wow. Amy jumps straight to the idea that the employee is violating policy, when that wasn't the question at all.

Hell, even Amy's proposed language says that the employee has to provide notice, not file a request and wait for approval.

(LW is right that it isn't fair to the other employees who ask, but that's because those employees shouldn't have to ask, either.)

[heavenscalyx]

Bets as to whether this would even be a question if the employee was a man?

[rmc28]

Where I've worked for the last twenty years, we have a leave booking system and I have to put in a leave request and my manager has to approve/deny. I've been there through the phases of this being by paper form, by email, and now by online form with email confirmations.

It is a pretty big deal for leave requests to be denied, but it does occasionally happen, and I kind of eyebrow-raise at that "I've never denied an employee time off" - do you have no coverage clashes ever? (Flashback to the time my team had an interim manager who just approved everyone's leave bookings automatically, so the new manager came in to find we had no-one at all scheduled to work in the week before our Christmas shutdown - it's normally quiet that week, but we need at least one person available.)

But like, I don't "respectfully ask permission", I say "I'm booking this time off" and boss either clicks approve, or much more rarely has a conversation with me about why the dates I want are an issue, and we see if we can find a solution. That's not me being passive-aggressive, that's just me using my leave, which is part of my compensation for the job.

[melannen]

My manager has never denied an employee time off!

That's because, you see, it's our responsibility to check the calendars before requesting it to make sure there won't be any coverage clashes. That way, she never has to deny any! If you should make the mistake of requesting leave sometime when there isn't coverage, she passive-agressively suggests you did it on purpose to make her life difficult and pressures you to withdraw or change the request, and if you don't, she makes sure all your co-workers know why there's a coverage problem and then gives you low marks for teamwork on your next evaluation. (This happens even if the conflict is something that wasn't on the calendars yet. I guess you should have just known.)

But! She doesn't deny leave requests!

[rmc28]

Some people really do just like the powertrip part of being a manager and not the part that involves actually solving problems, huh.

[likeaduck]

I don’t want to upset her, but I find this practice annoyingly passive-aggressive.

I'm sorry, who is being annoyingly passive-aggressive here?!

[shirou]

LW: Give me a break. If you need your employee at work for coverage or a criticl task, you may say so. If you want your employee to give you advance notice of early departures, absent a true emergency, that's normal and reasonable. However, do not police your employee's tone, which is reasonable and professional. Your employee does not owe you deferrence. (And the claim that this is somehow unfair to other employees is absurd.)

[mommy]

Wow. I'm genuinely surprised that Amy decided to answer this letter with "make up a PTO request policy instead of handling your own pet peeves." The problem only exists in the LW's mind, and creating a team-specific PTO request policy is a terrible fix for it!

[cereta]

Um, fuck no. Speaking as someone who rather frequently has to schedule a doctor's appointment as soon as there is a available slot (and sometimes on the same day), hell no am I going to ask permission to use the leave I am contractually entitled to. And I would really like to know how you require 48 hours notice for PTO when the most common use for PTO is sick time. "Hey, boss, I was thinking of scheduling a stomach virus on Thursday. Is that convenient?"

[neotoma]

I saw this referred to in today's Open Thread on Ask A Manager, and wow, no. This is terrible advice, and is likely to drive away good employees. How about the LW get over themselves and realize that PTO is part of their employees' compensation.

[rosefox]

I tell my boss in advance when I want time off to make sure there's no conflict with other things, arrange coverage, etc. but that's not "respectfully asking permission", it's just... not being a dick about it. This manager seems to be on some kind of power trip around PTO.

[lilysea]

I've worked in workplaces where it was almost impossible to get time off because there was the policy that parents got first dibs on time off for school holidays - and whenever I wanted time off I was told "sorry, no, that's school holidays!"

And if it wasn't school holidays, I was told "no, we have too much work for you to take time off!" [I was working for a Govt organization where staffing levels had been cut TO THE BONE, to the point that someone taking a sick day was a major problem]

Also the managers would only give you time off if they were happy with you - if you were [in their eyes] underperforming [because you were burned out!] they wouldn't give you time off

HR would regularly send out all-staff emails scolding people for not taking recreation leave time off and having too much recreation leave time-off banked eg 120 hours, even tho managers would never APPROVE time off without a big fight.

But that was a terrible workplace!

One of the staff I worked with couldn't get time off until she had a nervous breakdown and was out for months on stress leave!

[purlewe]

I personally have had a problem with getting time off work. So I recognize my bias as I am not on LWs side.

What exactly is the "asking" time off? I know I have been at my job a long while but we have a form that is submitted to our boss. My current process is: check calendar, fill in form, submit form, wait for response. I don't ask. I submit a form. Am I also supposed to submit a wordy, lengthy, breathy "oh please kind boss, will you grant this request for me?" with my form? I don't think anyone else does. Since we have been home I have been submitting my forms by email with the time request in the subject line of my email "vacation request May 22" "sick time request 5/5" (that last was for a doc appt) if actually SICK I call and leave a message on her voicemail before work hours.

So say it isn't a form but an email? a slip of paper? All it needs to say is "time off request" and the date and or the date and time. How does this request happen? Also time off is a benefit of working. Something that everyone should receive (I know some who don't) and something everyone should be allowed to take as it is part of the payment plan of working. (I get it that some people don't work= don't get paid and I am so mad about that. people deserve both paid vacation time and sick time. it's terrible that that isn't true for everyone) LW can decide yes or no after it is submitted. BUT I am concerned that LW has already decided that they don't like this worker and will likely do things to punish this worker overtly and covertly.

Several years ago I would submit vacation request forms and they would never be returned. I would ask about them, be told they were lost, and re-submit. I would wait and wait. Sometimes up to a few days before my vacation. No response. Once I had 3 days I needed to take before losing them. She wouldn't answer me. I spent about an hour that day following her around with the form asking for her signature. (sidenote: yes I know how this sounds. It got THAT BAD.) It was annoying as hell for her and me. HR got involved. The problem with my work is "managers will decide how to grant vacations days in their own dept" HR told her to respond in a more timely manner. My boss now answers about 24-48 hrs after I request the time. But now my boss changes the rules for me and only me almost every time. Everyone else submits a request and either gets a yes or no. I get maybes. Perhaps. I'll think about it. I have been told I can't take a vacation day when x colleague is out. Then it was when ANY colleague was out. Then it was if my boss was out. Currently she prefers if I don't take any consecutive days.

LW when you suddenly feel like only one person is bothering you about their vacation and you want to make them see the error of their ways (and only theirs), then you have become the sort of person who doesn't deal with all workers the fairly and equitably. And that is on you to figure out how to break your habits and your biases.

[shirou]

No consecutive days? How are you supposed to actually go on vacation? What the hell.

[purlewe]

yup. 2-3 days she hems and haws but gives me. 5? she asks me a BUNCH of questions seeing if I really have to take the time. I have taken two 10 day vacations in the 10 years she has worked as my manager and both times she asked up until the day I left if she needs me would I consider coming back to work in the middle of my vacation. When I told her I would be on another continent she kept pressing. I finally told her I would not be logging into email for the time I would be gone.

[lemonsharks]

Your boss sounds like an absolute pill and you have 110% of my sympathy for having to work with them

[purlewe]

thank you. telling stories about my boss always makes people think I am making parts of it up. She is so wildly off base when it comes to managing. This example is the mildest irritant about working with her. But the one I am the MOST vocal about bc I refuse to give up my vacation time bc it doesn't suit her.

[lemonsharks]

I've had bosses like this and they are the complete and utter worst.

(My first office job, that I was at for 7 years, I spent my first two years with no more than 4 consecutive days off (scheduled 4 day weekends), and 5 years with no more than 5 consecutive days off (3 day weekend + 2 days PTO), because they had me doing so many things that there was always at least one department that couldn't spare me.

And then when I finally went fuck it 5 years in and started taking sick time as needed and not being available over my vacations I was the problem.

Getting laid off from that nightmare office was the best thing that ever happened to me professionally.

[purlewe]

My previous job to this was at a alternative newspaper. No one was allowed time off on the following days: Fridays (bc we closed the book/paper) Mondays (bc we checked the book for errors) and Wednesdays (pub day) The 18 months I worked in that office I never took a day off or saw anyone else take a day off. There was a reason for high turnover at that office.

The job I am in now the previous boss I had was one of those who not only was good at being a boss, but she was fabulous at making sure everyone took their time. She wanted us all to be our best, and she felt like taking time off and getting us the most money for her employees in our dept were her two major goals. Seeing her in stark contrast with current boss is striking.

[lemonsharks]

ten bucks says the newspaper didn't actually pay you for time spent at office pub day, despite being a mandatory work activity that no one was allowed to skip.

[mirlacca]

Employee probably figures 1) that this is a paid benefit she's entitled to as part of her compensation (she's right) and 2) if there was a conflict with her taking the time off, her manager would let her know.

The tone of the LW bothers me; it sounds like LW wants her employees to come to her on bended knee and beg her indulgence for time off. If this employee "does excellent work. She is friendly, reliable, competent, and does not abuse her earned paid leave time," what the hell is her problem?