Addressing a Coworker’s Friday Absences in a Remote Work Environment

Hi Jane,

I work in a relatively large company that successfully transitioned to a remote work model since the pandemic. Our team has since maintained high productivity, minimal leave requests, and strong collaboration on multi-million-dollar projects.

However, I’ve been facing a recurring challenge lately: a particular colleague, Alice, frequently takes extended weekend trips on Fridays, even though our standard work week runs from Monday to Friday work schedule. This has occasionally impact my workflow, for instance, I’ve had to field client calls on Alice’s behalf due to her unavailability on Fridays.

While I value our team’s flexibility, I’m concerned about how this might affect project timelines or create an imbalance in responsibilities over time. I’m also mindful of how this could reflect on my performance and opportunities for growth.

How can I raise this with my manager or HR in a constructive way that emphasizes solutions and avoids coming across as critical or envious?

Thanks,

Dejected & Frustrated

Hi,

This seems like a tricky situation. Although, I do have some tips on handling this kind of stuff in a good way:

1. Highlight the Team’s Impact

• Chat with your boss or HR about how this thing’s affecting everyone together. You could say something like, “I’ve seen some trouble with people not being around on Fridays and it kind of messes with our work and how we get back to clients.”

2. Bring Up Specific Instances

• Be ready to drop some real-deal examples of when their being away stirred up issues for the group or dumped more work on you. This brings your point home in a way they can’t ignore.

3. Suggest Ways to Fix It

• You could try a couple of strategies to smooth over the snag without pointing fingers at the co-worker. Like:
  • You might want to kick off using a joint calendar so everyone knows when folks are free.
  • Swapping around who handles customer calls or quick-to-do jobs.
  • Being super clear about when you are going to be reachable in work time.

4. Hats Off to Flexibility and Good Vibes

• Kudos to your remote work setup and how well your squad’s doing. It’s cool you’re into the whole adaptable work thing, and you want to keep things fair and humming along.

5. Stick to Work Stuff

• Stay away from chatting about personal stuff, like if you’re eyeing a step up or feeling ticked off by how that teammate acts. Keep your eyes on the prize: team winning. And that means everyone needs to be on the same page about when they’re working.

Your Go-To Words for Talking to Bosses or HR:

“I’ve seen something about how we do things in the team. We’re doing great working away from the office, but sometimes Fridays get tricky when we need to talk to clients right away. We end up having to jump into work we weren’t planning on doing. Maybe if we had some simple rules about who needs to be around or took turns with these jobs, we could keep things running. Got any ideas on how to tackle this?”

Talking like this is all about giving positive focused feedback aimed at making things better. I hope this helps!

The post Addressing a Coworker’s Friday Absences in a Remote Work Environment appeared first on The HR Digest.

Source: New feed