Hi HN !
I recently took on a managerial role / project manager (I manage 2 programmers) at my work. Now that the summer holidays are approaching, my boss asks me, that during my holidays, I take my emails or that I be available to be called (~ 3h week).
He tells me that this is normal and that it comes with the role of manager.
On your side what is the vacancy policy in your company when you are managers ? Have you any advice on how to handle this ?
For the context it is a small business of 6 people.
But your username and grammar make me wonder whether you're French and in France, are you? If you are, I think it may actually be an illegal request. European attitudes towards work are extremely different to US ones, which are themselves more relaxed than e.g. East Asian.
From https://newatlas.com/right-to-disconnect-after-hours-work-em... :
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"France, in particular, has been ahead of the world in establishing legal frameworks protecting a person's right to disconnect. Back in 2001 the idea was first floated when the French Supreme Court ruled that employees are under no obligation to bring work home, and as technology progressed the Court continued to update its ruling. In 2004, for example, it was established that it was not misconduct if an employee was not reachable on a smartphone outside of work hours.
The right to disconnect was solidified at the beginning of 2017 with France introducing the El Khomri law, which suggests every employee contract must include a negotiation of obligations required of an employee regarding how connected they are outside of office hours. The law is reasonably vague and doesn't restrict after-hours work communication, but rather obliges organizations to negotiate these terms clearly with prospective employees."
I will look up the law to be sure !
https://www.cnt.gouv.qc.ca/conges-et-absences/vacances/vacan...
It says you're supposed to be able to take your vacation uninterrupted. You might want to check with them.
Is this a matter of principle for you or were you planning to go to some remote are with no Internet? If the latter, you could just explain the situation to your boss and they will probably understand.
However here’s the reality: If your employer dislikes you, they can fire you for some false reason. You then take it to court and you win. You will be awarded some amount, and there’s now a legally defined cap on that amount, which the employer knows before they fire you. The amount is roughly one month’s salary for each year worked at the company. And you don’t get your job back.
Of course not all employers use this strategy for various reasons, but it exists as a possibility, so it has to be taken into account when planning what response is in your best interest.
Also the problem is he is not asked to provide emergency contacts, he's asked to continue to check all his emails. Which for many people will mean they won't be able to get there had completely it of work and as such majorly degrade the vacation.
But this is not your case -- you have only 6 people -- there's no one to offload onto. The size of your group is such that everyone is presumably vital to the operation, and cannot be removed without surgical intervention.
So you're in the state of having to do one of two things:
1. Solve the problem for the company, and somehow institute policies, tasks and responsibilities to allow your resources to survive on their own for some time (you need to eventually do this anyways so you can work on higher level things)
2. Work minimum hours during vacation to make sure nothing blows up
3. Work no hours during vacation, and if it blows up, it blows up (and accept the backlash for it)
The key thing is that having such responsibilities means that you can't leave things in a broken state -- if that means you have to work extra hours to keep things working, so be it.
Vacation is for vacation, not work. If you're asked to stay on call then you better be paid for it. After all, you're not one of the founders, you're an employee.
If a business can't survive with a week or two of planning or delegation then it has other problems. Eating vacation is just a cop out.
If you haven't yet created the necessary environment that you can just step out for some time, then working beyond working-hours is the inevitable result.
If you've noted and escalated the problem -- that this environment cannot be setup without whatever additional resources/support -- then that's your safety net against any backlash. (It's now your bosses fault if he's aware and does nothing). But if you haven't... the onus remains on you
Probably delegate some of the short term responsibilities to one of the devs.
1) If there is a legitimate concern that some crisis will arise and be heavily exacerbated by you not being at work during vacation, that is an operational problem in the organization that needs to be dealt with. Who is your backup? What would happen if you suffered a medical emergency and were not in the office for a month? How would they deal with that?
2) It sounds like your expectations and values do not align with your manager's expectations and values. This is something that you should resolve with your manager or consider finding work elsewhere.
The intent of vacation is for you to recharge mentally and emotionally. A vacation where you are still plugged in, still on call, still expected to work, is not much of a vacation.
That said I check my email on vacation, typically redirect it to someone to address. I would say I spend 10 to 20 mins a day doing this while eating breakfast or in the library (if you know what I mean).
I gather that some folks do feel this kind of pressure, but maybe the answer is to help them overcome that feeling, rather than call the policy nonsense.
1. In general, talk to and designate someone to cover for you for the responsibilities that have to continue while you're on vacation. If that's not possible, see #2.
2. In general, don't answer emails. Activate your out-of-office auto-response feature. Set a protocol with your colleagues for how to flag urgent issues in email, such as an [Urgent] tag, and mention it in your out-of-office auto-response. If you're not going off the grid, then once a day check for urgent emails and respond to those. Ignore the rest. If you're going off the grid, make sure everyone knows you're off the grid (mention it in your out-of-office auto-response).
3. If you anticipate potential emergencies where you have to be involved, then set a protocol for how to contact you quickly in case of emergency, and bring your work with you just in case everything catches on fire. I always used "email me, call me on my Google Voice number, leave a message if I don't pick up, text me, and message me in company chat, in that order."
The key point is that sometimes it's urgent and the bus number is 1, and you're that one person, and in those cases it makes sense to ask that you be reachable. In all other cases your vacation should be respected and you should be left alone.
It’s all about setting expectations and delegating responsibility in advance.
Also making full use of the available tools:
- calendar OOO messages
- automated email replies
- slack status messages showing OOO dates