Give and take at work

Clampdown

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

I would love to have an hour "free" at work every day.

- Networking
- Managing-Up
- Keeping Up on Industry Trends
- Training new skills / Reading / Webinars.
- Mentor-ship
- Automating manual processes
- Reviewing / Updating Procedures
- Continuous Improvements
- Cost savings
- Doing some of my bosses or colleagues work if they are more swamped than I.

I understand if a person is in a role where they have no control over their work how these things may seem to be doing extra work when you do not have to. But it is work in these areas not in "your day job" or what you are "told to do" that gets you promoted and more money.

If I were you I would spend the hour first mapping the process/problems that keep you after hours, work out what the issues are and propose solutions. That would solve both of your problems, giving you something productive to do during your "free hour" and eliminating your overtime. It would raise your profile with your managers, your colleagues would appreciate it (and may help with the problem solving) and improve your work/life balance.

Not every job has the scope or need for employees to do all that, and not every job will have promotions or other rewards actually available to make it worthwhile.

And I would imagine things like networking, webinars, research into new trends, would be handy to have the internet for, no?

Actually there's your solution OP. Tell the boss you need the net to do all that arselicking stuff listed above.

Pac1Man

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

I would love to have an hour "free" at work every day.

- Networking
- Managing-Up
- Keeping Up on Industry Trends
- Training new skills / Reading / Webinars.
- Mentor-ship
- Automating manual processes
- Reviewing / Updating Procedures
- Continuous Improvements
- Cost savings
- Doing some of my bosses or colleagues work if they are more swamped than I.

That sounds like a nightmare.

All you need is the diesel German saloon to touch base going forward and you're all set.

HeavyHeaded

Elessar wrote: »

It depends on the job/industry. Working on the factory floor? Absolutely. Working in IT? Go and sh*te.



I don't care who's looking at me. Day to day, am I:

- Doing my job? Yes.
- Doing it well and getting good feedback and reviews? Yes.
- Helping out with extra work and hours the odd time? Yes.


It sounds pretty sh*te OP what the company are doing, they clearly don't trust their staff. Sounds very Irish. There are lots of companies that won't treat you like that. Sounds laughable to be quite honest.

I simply wouldn't work in a place like that.

I feel exactly like you. I've told them its quiet and I help out with other roles now but still have down time. I always do my work the second it comes in and I don't waste time so everything gets done quicker and I probably have more free time because of this but its just making me miserable going into work.

HeavyHeaded

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

I would love to have an hour "free" at work every day.

- Networking
- Managing-Up
- Keeping Up on Industry Trends
- Training new skills / Reading / Webinars.
- Mentor-ship
- Automating manual processes
- Reviewing / Updating Procedures
- Continuous Improvements
- Cost savings
- Doing some of my bosses or colleagues work if they are more swamped than I.


If I were you I would spend the hour first mapping the process/problems that keep you after hours, work out what the issues are and propose solutions. That would solve both of your problems, giving you something productive to do during your "free hour" and eliminating your overtime. It would raise your profile with your managers, your colleagues would appreciate it (and may help with the problem solving) and improve your work/life balance.

None of what you listed is applicable to my job. As for trying to reduce work load after hours. Its not possible because I run overall reports covering multiple teams and it's only then that issues arise. Its not possible predict that another team may have made an error through out the day.

It's at the point now that someone was held up in traffic today on the N 7 and they wrote up a report on it. He was about 6 mins late... I must clarify one manager wrote it. The other didn't care.

Mrs OBumble

Get yourself a smartphone with a data plan. Use that to access the web.


Re your question about is it the norm:

When the internet (web and external email) first became available in the workplace, it was the norm to have zero personal use allowed.

Then companies copped on and figured it was less disruptive to have people doing minimal browsing and sending the odd personal email, so limited personal use was generally allowed.

Now, as more people have smartphones which can be used for personal browsing, it's becoming more common to have no-personal-use policies again.



And if this kind of pettiness or the need to work a little longer some days is really getting to you, then find another job.

Irish_Elect_Eng

Pac1Man wrote: »

That sounds like a nightmare.

All you need is the diesel German saloon to touch base going forward and you're all set.

Already have the nice German company car with some other other perks that come along with the promotions that focusing on some of the activities listed can help anyone achieve. Wish I had the time to do more of it, one of the problems of getting better at what you do is that it attracts more work and it is harder to find the time for further personal development. But on the plus side, even though I report to a line manager, I can't remember the last time he had to tell me what needed to be done, so my job and my teams direction is pretty much self directed and self defined now.

Irish_Elect_Eng

HeavyHeaded wrote: »

None of what you listed is applicable to my job. As for trying to reduce work load after hours. Its not possible because I run overall reports covering multiple teams and it's only then that issues arise. Its not possible predict that another team may have made an error through out the day.

It's at the point now that someone was held up in traffic today on the N 7 and they wrote up a report on it. He was about 6 mins late... I must clarify one manager wrote it. The other didn't care.

Please believe me when I say that, I have seen to see any companies process that did not have scope for improvement.
We review every process at least once per year and none escape that review without changes, from tweaks to rewrites.
I deal with a lot of data-entry issues in the area of customer complaints and failure investigation.
I know just how difficult it can be to get teams of different cultures and language skills to enter meaningful data into poorly designed web-forms.
But we must try to improve or suffer on...

• Do you keep a log of the types of errors that are occurring?
• - If you don't document the issues, you don't know what to change.
  
• Do you provide feedback to all the teams detailing the errors that are occurring?
• - If you don't tell the teams what errors are being made by other teams they will be repeated.
  
• Do you provide a checklist, good practice document or worked example templates?
• - Help the team to improve their reports, people want to do good work.
• Do you provide metrics back to the team manager/leads on "errors per day/report"?
• - If you don't measure it you cannot know when it it improving.

Have you approached your manager or a company subject matter expert for help in solving the problems with the process. It is in the companies interest to get the work done correctly.

Best of Luck.

Irish_Elect_Eng

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

Already have the nice German company car with some other other perks that come along with the promotions that focusing on some of the activities listed can help anyone achieve. Wish I had the time to do more of it, one of the problems of getting better at what you do is that it attracts more work and it is harder to find the time for further personal development. But on the plus side, even though I report to a line manager, I can't remember the last time he had to tell me what needed to be done, so my job and my teams direction is pretty much self directed and self defined now.

ah you were doing so well until you mentioned the status symbol of quacks..ZA German car" you sound like the love child of Norman vincent peale and monica gellar!!

damn it man, us mere mortals are dealing with internet censorship and sticking it to the man and here you are seizing the moment with your uber curriculum vitae on steroids...we get it, you're amazing, I'll bet they're eating out of your shorts come the xmas party, oh you and your anecdotes and rib-ticklers!!!!

now scat down to rolys because bill Cullen and Michael O'Leary are waiting on you, those brandys wont pour themselves.

Irish_Elect_Eng

rusty cole wrote: »

ah you were doing so well until you mentioned the status symbol of quacks..ZA German car" you sound like the love child of Norman vincent peale and monica gellar!!

damn it man, us mere mortals are dealing with internet censorship and sticking it to the man and here you are seizing the moment with your uber curriculum vitae on steroids...we get it, you're amazing, I'll bet they're eating out of your shorts come the xmas party, oh you and your anecdotes and rib-ticklers!!!!

now scat down to rolys because bill Cullen and Michael O'Leary are waiting on you, those brandys wont pour themselves.

Brandy? Never!, I'm a craft beer hipster, , if you are looking for a stereotype :-)
And Pac1Man brought up the German Car sterotype, I wanted an American car, but company policy and all that....

So many of the comments on here are negative when it comes to work, but there are good places to work and there are people enjoying their careers. Even in a poor environment, people can make a difference and build on the hand that they a dealt.

If you look at most of my posts, they are at least constructive as I try to be helpful. (Not always successfully)

Irish_Elect_Eng

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

Brandy? Never!, I'm a craft beer hipster, , if you are looking for a stereotype :-)
And Pac1Man brought up the German Car sterotype, I wanted an American car, but company policy and all that....

So many of the comments on here are negative when it comes to work, but there are good places to work and there are people enjoying their careers. Even in a poor environment, people can make a difference and build on the hand that they a dealt.

If you look at most of my posts, they are at least constructive as I try to be helpful. (Not always successfully)

well I have to say, you certainly are magnanimous I'll say that for you, taking my post in good spirits, I actually think that says a lot more about you than me, in a good way for you. I retract my negative vitriol, good for you, I'm pleasantly surprised.:)

fly_agaric

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

But loyalty within the workplace between employees and their managers or colleagues on a team or department basis is a very common sight at least in the high performing companies and teams that I have had the pleasure of working with. I have seen managers and colleagues go out on a limb for their co-workers many times.

Yes, our human tendency to connect with others around us at work is, I think, quite a useful lever for HR and the owners of such companies. They can use it to milk loyalty (your direct manager and colleagues are great people, you interact with them every day, why wouldn't you work your arse off the help them out!), while at the strategic level they will replace you with a robot, an algorithm, a younger cheaper worker, or a third world worker in an eye-blink if possible.:pac:

I once did some contract work for a company who used the internet to try and set up people the wanted to 'manage' out: give them very very little/zero real work to do, give them fast unthrottled internet access, relative privacy, then sit back and wait. Like a form of torture... From what I recall it was inevitably only a matter of time before official internet policy was breached and could be shown to have been breached. I got out of there soon after, too much unpleasantness brewing for my taste so not sure how many people were managed out/fired in this manner but I witnessed two in six months. One was an older guy, many years service, holding out for a good potential redundancy... I genuinely felt bad for him
Nasty company, with a lot of nasty people, but it happens.

GalwayGrrrrrl

If you have spare time register for a course that interests you that is vaguely relevant to your job- management, quality, software skills etc. Ask your company to pay for it (they might). When you get your free time pull out your books and get reading. Win-win! You'll probably tell me it's going to be an online course, but I'm sure you could print off the necessary reading material if needs be.
OR - bring your smartphone to the toilet

dresden8

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

I cant make head not tail of your post I'm afraid.

You're probably proud to work for free.

AryaStark

Clampdown wrote: »

Tbh I'd say it's an empty enough threat. If the majority of the workforce have pcs connected online you must need it for work somehow otherwise why would they have it and pay for it. And why pay for it to 'block it.'

I'd just stay off it a week and then go back to the way it was. If anyone says anything, don't make a big deal, close it down and say sorry. If they block it then I would stop staying late. But they probably won't, it would be stupid to have a workplace offline in 2017.

They will just block certain sites I would say. I was a manager in an office before and we had a couple of people who spent most of the day on Digital Spy! It was an It help desk. These two workers would take calls but be on the forums on digital spy. There was a lot of training courses available for people to do in down time and recommended ways to pass the time efficiently without browsing the internet during office time.
We blocked access to Digital Spy. There was also a guy who used to access bookies and bet on horses during work hours. These sites were also blocked.