A reader writes:
I am the director of a small, established nonprofit where I worked my way up the ranks. Since the organization is so small, I have day-to-day tasks along with more senior responsibilities such as board meetings, weekend and evening events, media relations, and external meetings with other nonprofits, civic associations, and partner organizations. As I grow, I am finding more demands on my time and skills. I have also earned more time off and take work-life balance seriously, since I’ve suffered from burn-out and stress-related health issues before.
The upshot here is that I am often on the run, headed out to meetings and events outside the office. Since I frequently work nights and weekends (usually I at least put in an appearance six days a week), I sometimes take an afternoon off or leave early to keep myself under the 40-50 hour limit established by my board of directors.
My difficulty is that I often feel guilty and worried when I leave the office, even though it’s part of my job. I supervise some people who used to be senior to me, and I also have a group of very young staffers who are working their first jobs. I don’t want them to feel like it’s okay for them to come and go whenever they want, or that it’s okay for the boss to be a hypocrite. I also don’t want the senior staff to feel like I’m not around when I’m supposed to be. I have heard the occasional grumble from some of the senior staff that I’m “never there,” even though I’m always working, just not always in the office or always available immediately when people want me. (I think that’s because the older staff see a lot more value in being physically at the office.) I know it’s important to come and go on time, but I’m simply not able to work the same shifts as the staff.
Should I try to explain what is going on, or would that just stir up drama? As long as my managers understand my irregular schedule, do I just accept that sometimes people are going to grumble about management? Or do I need to do something else?
For what it’s worth, the organization is in really good shape, we’ve pulled in some new donors and grants and I’ve done what I can to promote people and get their pay raised. We do important work that can be emotionally difficult and I want people to be satisfied in their jobs.
Have you named this explicitly for people?
If not, that’s where I’d start, saying something like this to the whole staff: “I want to share some information about my schedule. I’m juggling a lot of demands on my time, much of them outside the office and some of them in the evenings and on weekends — things like board meetings, external meetings, and fundraising events. That means I’m often on the run, heading to meetings and events outside the office. And because I frequently end up working nights and weekends, when I have a chance to leave early occasionally, I may do that too. What this means for you is that you won’t see me in the office as often as most other people here. But that doesn’t mean I’m inaccessible — you should call if something is urgent, and of course we have weekly check-ins if you report to me directly. If you ever find that you’re not able to reach me when you need me, I’d want you to raise that so we can find a solution to it going forward.”
You could also say, “The board has asked me to limit myself to 40-50 hours a week to avoid burnout, which I think is wise counsel for all of us. For me, that’s where grabbing the occasional afternoon comes in, if I can do it. For those of you with more traditional schedules, that means making sure that you’re using all your vacation time and speaking up if you’re ever having trouble staying on top of your work in a 40-50-hour week. The expectation here is not that you’ll work yourself to the bone — there’s a lot of work, but if it’s unmanageable in a healthy number of hours, I want you to flag it so we can find solutions.”
Of course, all this has to be true. You have to truly support people in sticking to 40-50 hours and genuinely tackle workload problems, or this won’t ring true and will rightly cause more grumbling. And you have to make sure that people who need you can reach you in a reasonable amount of time or know what to do if they can’t — and are empowered to make decisions and keep things moving in your absence. If any of those things aren’t true, that would explain the grumbling.
But if the grumbling is more rooted in old-school ideas that you should just be physically present all the time — and a lack of understanding of what your job entails — the conversation above may help.
If it doesn’t, you’d need to have one-on-one conversations with the grumblers to ask point-blank about their concerns. Who knows, maybe there’s something legitimate there that you don’t know about. And if there’s not — if it’s just grumbling — then addressing it directly will help.
As for the junior folks who you don’t want to draw the wrong lessons from watching you, being clear will help there too. They should hear the same explanation as above, so they have context for why you’re in and out. Beyond that, I’d wait to see if you see any actual evidence that it’s a problem. If you’re not seeing that, assume they get it and it’s fine. But if you do see problems, then you (or their manager, if that’s not you) should talk with them, explicitly name the expectations for their hours and presence in the office, and explain that different roles have different requirements around those things (and explain why theirs are whatever they are). Good employees will get that — even if it wasn’t clear to them originally.
But all of this assumes that you’re managing well! If people feel like they can’t get responses or follow-through from you, or that work is being bottlenecked, or that they’re nickeled and dimed over their time or made to feel guilty for taking time off, all of this will fall flat. So take a good look at that stuff at the same time.
I feel guilty that I’m out of the office so much — and I’ve heard grumbling from my staff was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
from Ask a Manager http://bit.ly/2JwyKsg
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