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."
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.
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).
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.
If the expectation is that you'll check your email at least once a day at a set time and do maybe 15 minutes of work tops, then yeah, that absolutely goes with the territory of small company management. Pick a time and put it on your calendar for each day you're away, "Respond to emails", 15 minutes long.
If it's more than that, and the expectation is that you'll be available on short notice to resolve anything that comes up, then you're effectively on call and should use that language explicitly.
What would be unreasonable would be for you to effectively be on call for 8 hours a day during your vacation and to still be deducted the normal PTO rate.
Based on that I think it is not crazy to ask you to touch base a couples of times a week while on holiday.
Very small businesses often have big problems operating when even one person is missing because there is no slack in the system: Everyone has an important role and has to be on deck.
Hopefully, there is a big upside for you that compensates for this.
In a large company it's possible that no-one will even notice that you went on holdays...
1) Decide if this company is in this category (you’re proud to be part of it and think it can change the world); 2) Decide if you are someone who is capable of doing this (it’s a huge commitment, are your ready and able to be a world changer?); 3) Determine if you’re in an early enough group to justify this commitment (~first ten? 20?); and, 4) Set reasonable parameters around checking in / email to be available in an emergency, but otherwise are on holiday (i.e. if it’s not an emergency / meeting agreed upon emergency requirements, you’re on holiday and not working) — you’re not just answering questions via email).
Above all, say what you mean (I will / will not do this) and do what you say.
For context, I’m founder of three startups collectively >$500M exits. And any first five-ten employees who didn’t understand the above would have a short tenure. They’re simply not startup material.
That said, we strive for 40-hour weeks, we take evenings and weekends off, and we expect all statutory holidays and personal holidays off — always with the caveat that if the fit hits the shan, we’re all available to band together and solve the problem.
That is with the explicit warning that it is only to be used in situations where the site is down and we've called everyone else.
Whether they answer email is hit or miss. The ones that do I think are just workaholics.
My take is that I don't generally mind, because typically the reason I'm getting called is that I dropped the ball on something. I've been called twice out of work hours when I wasn't on call. Once because I developed a system and did a shitty job training other people on it, so when something broke that wasn't a simple fix, I got called. The other time was because the solo dev for the product was on vacation, his replacement on call didn't know much about the system, and I had worked with it the most other than the main dev. I should have documented how I worked with the system and fixed it in the past, but I didn't, because documentation always ends up as the last thing I want to do. The org likes documentation and would have given me time to do it, I just didn't want to. So I reaped what I sowed there.
Is this legal? Maybe. Probably. IANAL but as far as I'm aware, there is nothing wrong with the request itself. That said, if he fires you based on inaction during holdiay periods, there may well be legal recourse depending on your country etc. But get legal advice before you go down that route.
Is this acceptable? Maybe. As manager, it's up to you (and in your best interests) to maintain control of the situation. In your "I'm off, have a good couple of weeks" message, set limits on what kinds of communications you expect to deal with while on holiday. Remind everyone that they too are expected to enjoy the freedom of their time off, and if you expect them to be unacceptable about it then be clear that anyone found abusing your free time will be ignored or worse.
Ensure that, where possible and appropriate, you nominate deputies with the experience and good sense to deal with the kinds of issues that are likely to come up.
Also, check what they expect from your 3 hours a week. If it's 3 hours reporting on the activities of the team, kindly inform them that the answers will be a couple of weeks old, or that you will refer to members of your team for that information.
Remember also that it is your responsibility to help set the tone and atmosphere for the company. How you deal with this determines how others will deal with similar situations. So sure, be accommodating up to a point, but remind those around you that team morale pivots on valuing each other and protecting each other.
There are 10 people that work for my company... half of them engineers like myself. It's expected that we aren't completely disconnected on vacation... but at least available if a true emergency crops up that needs our niche expertise.
That said, my boss is awesome and encourages healthy work-life separation, so stuff has to really escalate before you're expected to jump in...
The reality as always is more complexe. It is true that some role come with an (implied) expectation of general availibility. While it would be your right to decline any work-related phone call, I'm sure it could one way or another impact your relation with your boss, especially if 'it comes with the role'. I guess it all depends on what you want. If you don't want to be answering work calls during your holidays, you can always fake being unreachable. It's not unreasonnable to not have your phone with you at every moment. Or, if you don't mind being reachable, maybe arrange for a predefined time slot (from 9 am to 9.30 am every day) when they can call you, so that you don't have to worry about it all day.
As a manager you are responsible for your department those responsibilities dont magically poof away because your on vacation. If you have successfully set up your team/department in a way that you can "go dark" for your time off (e.g. no need of your knowledge, and proper key teammates can step in for you to interface with other teams/departments) then great, otherwise you should expect backlash if something goes wrong.
That way someone has to make the choice to disturb you when it's truly necessary, as compared to preemptively laying claim to some vaguely-defined portion of your vacation time.
[1] For a larger company, my answer would be no - your vacation time is your time, and not the company's.
Go ahead and ask them to call.
Don't be afraid to say when the can check it ( eg. 3 hours later).
And check what the request is. If it's a bullshit interruption, than say you don't appreciated it for this.
If it's a good question, don't worry. You will understand why they did it.
In my case: totally fine, bit I never got an interruption for bullshit :)
If the company will truly fall apart when you become unavailable, then you are doing it wrong. Hire people you can trust, train them, maintain well-defined processes in some Body of Knowledge repository. Then let people know who to contact for what. Give clear and accurate criteria for the emergencies when you should be called/texted. Then be present always, whether it is work or vacation. You'll find your happiness increases, your job output increases, and the people you work with will grow and be happier for it.
If I were you, I would see if you can work something out with your boss that's agreeable to both of you. Maybe it's fine just to glance at the emails for 5 or 10 minutes in the whenever time window is convenient, with no expectation of action until you actually are back to work. If that's no good enough (i.e. they want you explicitly looking at your emails for a set window) then try to see if there's some other form of acceptable recompense in exchange for you to be working on holiday, for example extra pay to compensate for the fact that your giving up some vacation time to do work.
This depends on the work culture at your company and in the country you are in as the labor law and norms varies. My own experience has been that it's entirely possible (imaging your 2 direct reports are roadblocked waiting for you to make a decision) and your role is so crucial that your boss depends on your to make an informed decision, your attendance on email responses could be important. Obviously, if it's a short vacation and everything is planned out and prepared for, your response on emails would probably not needed.
Again, I don't think there is a common scene here you can find on HN.
I never check my email on vacation. I also try as much as I can to do the same for them so they can go on vacation.
It is not "normal" for managers to be available to be called while they're on holiday. When I've been in management roles the rules have been the same as non-management rules. Holiday is holiday: you're not there.
What that means is, if your manager needs support while you're away, you and he need to have a discussion about what cover looks like such that you personally don't need to be there. What can you delegate up or down? Is there a peer you can hand some responsibilities off to temporarily?
If he's not willing to have that discussion at all, that's a real problem, but I'd approach it as a problem to be mutually solved.
Threat - if the program/project genuinely requires that the manager needs to on emails regularly and if you don't give what it takes to a manager of those programs/projects, they might replace you with someone who does.
Opportunity - if you check your emails in vacation and take proper action, then you will gain trust from management and they don't even bother whether you are in office or in vacation. they might even give more responsibilities.
Because business never goes on vacation, you cannot tell customers that key person is in vacation. You can find someone to act as a manager when you are on vacation. But that person might replace you, if you are not very careful.
Offer to do the same thing for him when he is on vacation. This is a better strategy for co-workers, but since you are a small company you can see what your boss says. At the size you are at it is important that you offer to reciprocate what you are asking for, to show that you want to be treated fairly and appropriately.
I think the size of the company explains why you were asked to take emails while on vacation. In a bigger organization, with more redundancy, handling vacations would be less of a problem.
I’ve never been told take emails while on vacation, but I’ve volunteered to do so when there was nobody available with the skills and/or specific knowledge to replace me.
Since you’re asking for advice, I’d advise you to accept taking emails and just try to ensure it doesn’t take you to much time. Avoid doing too much hand holding in your messages and just answer the critical stuff. Before you leave, explain to the two programmers what they can decide on their own and what they can’t.
For example, boss calls interrupting my sunbathing session needing advice on how to fix something. Call is 14 minutes. I'm going to either bill that as an hour, or take another hour off sometime.
Doesn't apply if its because I've done my job badly (ie. didn't properly document some procedure, so now someone else needs help following it).
For example, if you have to be available for 3h per week, you might suggest retaining 1 vacation day of that week. Similarly, you could suggest that you retain the vacation day if you end up working more than one hour on any given day of your vacation.
As well as ensuring you aren't giving away your vacation time for free, this also sets boundaries. The risk here is that your 3h a week effectively turns into you being on call for the vacation.
Most of my bosses have left their contact information for when they are away from the office, but I've never had reason to use it. I would feel bad interrupting someone's time off except in cases of true emergencies, which might happen more often in other company cultures or industries.
The magic word is
"No"
Just say the word. That's it.
It's your decision ultimately but if it was a nice company otherwise and I could check in only once per week or in case of a "the house is on fire" emergency I probably would accept it.
Also make sure the days they ask you to check in are not counted as days off.
Vacations are an incredible forcing function for proper documentation, backups, knowledge, whatever. If there's _anyone_ on the team who can't be 100% offline for a week, that's a problem.
Many companies or departments, especially smaller ones, don't have the capability to make all employees redundant. Not always just because they can't afford to have twice the employees they normally need.
All of my managers were available during vacation if something truly blows up. But they never planned to dedicate a few hours for work on their vacations.
What your company needs is better processes and policies. iirc, most my managers planned their vacations so that it was not right before or after major releases or other events.
I would check what the local laws for you are regarding this, but I would personally say "no". Work with your team to make sure they know exactly what they need to work on and clear the path of anything that may get in their way, then go enjoy your vacation.
If you're not a member of a Trade Union, then I recommend taking your holiday somewhere which has no phone reception. A nice mountain hike, or similar.
Remote work vs work from home vs vacation vs time off
I've always had to email a little on the weekends when in manager roles.
However, as a manager it can be hard to truly disconnect and take vacation without either (a) missing a big decision and not being happy with the decision that was made, or (b) delaying the rest of the team by asking them to wait to make a decision until you get back.
So your options for this are:
(1) Have a designated substitute person who will cover your responsibilities while you are out. As a manager this is an important part of your job actually, succession planning. You should be teaching and grooming someone to replace you when you leave. This should be a person who you trust and who you work with a lot, so whatever decision they make will be okay with you. Then you have to be zen about it and actually accept whatever decisions they make while you were out.
(2) Try to pull forward any decisions that you can, so that everything is settled before you leave. There’s a lot you can probably decide in advance, but obviously that doesn’t help with the random unknown things that can pop up at any time.
If you do both of the above then it really is reasonable to disconnect.
You should be able to tell your boss your goal is to truly disconnect, and he or she should respect that. If your boss pushes back on these things, then you should seek to understand why. Is there a specific meeting or a specific conversation that can only happen during your vacation and your boss really wants you to be there for it?
I don’t think it’s crazy to join in a specific conversation during a longer vacation if it’s something that you really care about and it can’t move. Ask yourself if it’s gonna drive you crazy not knowing what decision was made until you get back :)
However, as everyone else has said, you aren’t really disconnecting if you have some things from work you need to check on during your break. This is a legitimate struggle for managers, and it means that sometimes you take partial breaks where you get some rest but not a full vacation because you can’t completely cut out.
It’s OK to take partial breaks sometimes, but not ideal, you also need full breaks. Therefore is my final suggestion is this:
As a manager you end up scheduling your vacation time around your work. Meaning, you probably know when the team is likely to have a stretch where nothing major is going to happen, and that is when you should take a true disconnect vacation. Obviously you can’t predict the future perfectly, so you need the first two techniques to compensate for whatever unknown things may pop up while you are gone. However, as you get used to being a manager you will start to have a good feel for when you really need to be around and when you don’t, and the best thing to do is to take vacation when you don’t really need to be around. You’re not an IC anymore, so you can’t just peace out and leave your manager to deal with it ;)
I hope this helps. Good luck, and welcome to being a manager :)
But really you only have 2 guys. That’s piss in a pond. Surely somebody can account for your two people for a short time. Where I work managers have 40 people.