Wondering what you think about this situation I currently have at work.
8 of us professionals are equally responsible for handling a specific workload. The workload is divided evenly among us as the work comes into the office, and we are each individually responsible for everything needed to complete approximately 500 matters per year. Certain aspects of matters are time sensitive such that when one employee is absent, cases can be reassigned. For example, if I had tasks that were scheduled to occur today but I called in sick, my colleagues would try to cover those tasks to the extent possible. Different, long term solutions involving reassignment pf workload are necessary with prolonged absences - such as following emergency surgery or something.
One of the 8 of us has been out of the office for going on 3 months. We have no explanation of why they are absent, and management has said only that they have no idea when they will return. Their work has been reassigned on case-by-case basis.
I realize that an employee’s privacy rights restrain management from discussing specific about the employee’s personal matters. However, to the extent that the rest of us are expected to pick up their caseload - often on short notice, many of us have commented to each other that it might make a difference in our eagerness to do so whether the absent employee had health problems, as opposed to possibly being subject to disciplinary proceedings, or something else.
So, I figure I’m just being nosy, and ought to simply respond to any reassignments as I feel appropriate?
I don’t understand. If you found out they were on a hooker n’ blow tour of Eastern Europe, you would decide not to do the things that have to get done?
I similar thing recently happened at our office. A person had to take a personal leave without notice. She was out for about a month. As one of the bosses, I was aware of the circumstances, but we did not share with her coworkers who had to pick up the slack. Out of respect for the person’s privacy, (and perhaps as required by law) I believe we did the right thing. The problem with the OP’s situation, as I understand it, is not that they haven’t been told the reason, it’s that it’s been going on too long without a solution. Getting extra work for 90 days (and counting) seems like a legitimate problem that management should find a solution to.
Basically, we have more work than we can handle. So it is a constant triage - handling the oldest, most critical matters. 500 matters per year per employee is pretty much full capacity. So if there were only 7 of us, we’d only complete 7x500, rather than 8x500. Make sense? (Our office is actually set up to have 10 of us in our position.)
Our personal workloads are currently scheduled out through August. So we’ve each individually estimated what we can do when several months ahead - including personal leave and such. While we cover for each other in emergencies, our general practice is to not act in a way that causes our colleagues to have to pick up our assigned tasks (whenever possible).
Heck, since we schedule so far in advance, we willingly swap workload when things come up on short notice. If this is THAT sort of situation, some general idea as to why the employee is out would affect my willingness to volunteer to pick up their work. Otherwise, if the employee is expected to eventually return, then I’d just as soon let them keep their work and handle it when they return.
We are under pressure to complete our oldest tasks by the end of the fiscal year - end of Sept. So if they were simply giving me one of the absent employee’s cases, and I was just tacking it on to the end of my workload - to get to it in September or later, that would be no big deal. But instead, that employee’s oldest cases are being reassigned in dribs and drabs - yesterday I was reassigned one that had action that needed to be taken today.
I’d prefer that my management identified all of the cases that NEEDED to be reassigned through the end of the fiscal year, and reassign them NOW, so I could figure out how to work them into my schedule. Instead, I envision a situation where the end of August comes around, and the dump something on me saying it is an emergency and needs to be done ASAP.
It appears that your concern is primarily focused on your workload and your eagerness to deal with it, but aren’t you worried that your co-worker might be dying?
It’s natural to be curious about what is keeping them out of the office, so management shouldn’t be surprised if questions are asked. But if I were your boss and you gave me the impression that the quality of your work depended on knowing something that you were not entitled to know, it would make me question your work ethic and dedication. Not to mention your political savvy.
Everything will get done eventually. Just at a later date. I do not get paid piecework, nor do I receive any other incentives to work overtime or exceed my share of work (Not that it matters, but I am generally in the top 5th nationwide in terms of production.)
Yes, if I am expected to do extra work on a short timetable, the facts matter in my motivation. If the employee were on a hookers n blow tour, I would expect some indication that the employee would be facing some repercussions.
Sounds like that’s the real problem; that management is doing a poor job of redistributing the work of the absent co-worker and identifying what the deadlines are. If you’re up for it, have you considered volunteering to do this? Yes, it would take time away from your normal work but it’s necessary and someone has to do it.
Well, that’s what I’m asking. If you are expected to do extra work, what difference does your motivation make?
I mean, do you have a choice on whether or not to do the absent employee’s work? If so, then yeah, I understand what you are saying. But if you have no choice, then the reason the employee is out seems irrelevant.
Is this work you are volunteering to do, or work they are assigning to you as your job?
It seems like the latter, and if so, the only responses to an unsatisfactory answer would be to suck it up or protest-resign. Do you have plans to protest-resign?
If you had enough people to complete everything on time if everyone was working at full capacity, then you’d just all chug through it, without really needing a lot in the way of prioritization or anything like that.
But being a person down for an extended period means that you really should have clear guidelines from management about what to work on, and in what order. In practical terms, this means that they need to either develop a standard policy (“always work on the oldest first, no exceptions”), or they need to be periodically evaluating what’s in the backlog and being worked on, and readjust the order of those things.
However, it sounds to me more that the issue is that your environment changed, you don’t like it, and they haven’t been communicative about why or for how long. Would you be less disgruntled if they’d said “Aloysius is going to be out for the next four months, starting yesterday.” without necessarily saying why? Or if they’d said “Aloysius has a kid with cancer- he’ll be out and/or working in a reduced capacity for the indefinite future.”?
3 months sounds like an awful long time. I certainly don’t know the FMLA rules (assuming you’re in the USA) but I think for 3 months absence I’d want to have HR find when and if there’s an anticipated return to work. At the very least, I’d see if your manager can consider bringing in a temp person.
I wouldn’t be asking why the employee was gone (cause it really is a privacy concern). I would, however, be asking when, or if, they are expected back.
That is not a privacy matter. That is a matter of figuring out how to get the work on your team done without the 8th member.
That’s how I would handle it, anyway. I would ask when they will be back so we can prioritize his work appropriately.
I get where the OP is coming from. In many of the schools I’ve taught at there’s a “take care of each other” mentality when things like this come up. A few of the teachers abuse it and that causes animosity. Most teachers if they need coverage it’s “Sure no problem.” but if I have to cover for one of the system abusers I make sure I get paid. Perhaps that’s where Dinsdale is coming from. If the absentee is taking care of his kid with leukemia then it’s not a problem but if it’s him “finding himself” by running naked with giraffes for six months then Dinsdale and his coworkers deserve some sort of recompense for all the extra work they’re doing.
And yeah, assuming management knows this is long term they’re doing a horrible job helping you out.
My brother’s job is having a similar problem, minus the privacy issues.
They have two in-house lawyers; one of them is pregnant and on medical leave due to high-risk pregnancy. She was put on leave while on her second month. That means that, if everything goes well, she’ll be off for a year. If things don’t go well, she’ll go back but keep trying, hopefully get pregnant again… and go on medical leave due to high-risk pregnancy again.
And yet, the bosses refuse to hire someone because “she might come back!” Yes, she may - but hopefully in a year!
The issue isn’t secrecy or not, it’s managers thinking that subordinates are infinitely-stretchable rubber bands.
Dinsdale has a right to be upset, but not at the missing employee. That person may be ill, or on the lam, or secretly dead, but the problem is that Dinsdale’s workload has increased for a prolonged period with no relief in sight and no increase in compensation. There is no point in asking why the cow-orker is gone, only in asking when a replacement (even if temporary) will be arriving, or when compensation will be increased to reflect the increased workload. Repercussions for the missing employee does nothing to compensate Dinsdale for their extra work. I mean, if there are meant to be 10 of you in the position, and you were operating with 8 but are now down to 7, they’re taking advantage of you.
But this is a lot of leave to be burning up for a frivolous issue, right? It’s a safer bet that its a medical issue, a family issue, or a leave without pay type of disciplinary issue.
Regardless of what it is, though, the bottom line remains the same: there is extra work that is burdening the team because it’s short one person. It is management’s job to worry about staffing and personnel issues; and it is the OP’s job to worry about getting his job done. If he’s feeling overworked, then that’s what he needs to be communicating to his boss. The personnel issues behind it are not in his sphere of control.
My office currently has an employee out for 90 days. We’ve been told that he is out, and expected back, but not the reason for it. He could be sick, in jail, taking care of a dying relative, in rehab, or out for any of a host of other reasons. Not our business, although the office is small, and production has been impacted.
I would only say that the OP is being overworked if he’s expected to churn out an increased number of widgets in the same amount of time that was expected of him before the co-worker disappeared.
But if the turnaround time for getting products out the door has been relaxed to accommodate the increase in assignments per person (in other words, the OP is still doing a 40 hour work week same as he was before), then this doesn’t indicate that management is ignoring the situation. I’m not saying this is necessarily the right course of action; just that the OP needs to look at things objectively.
I would only say that the OP is being overworked if he’s expected to churn out an increased number of widgets in the same amount of time that was expected of him before the co-worker disappeared.
But if the turnaround time for getting products out the door has been relaxed to accommodate the increase in assignments per person (in other words, the OP is still doing a 40 hour work week same as he was before), then this doesn’t indicate that management is ignoring the situation. I’m not saying this is necessarily the right course of action; just that the OP needs to look at things objectively.
