Staff Leaving Work Early

www.statista.com/statistics/883433/nhs-england-staff-working-extra-unpaid-hours/
You can’t generalise based on personal experience, it’s insulting to the many thousands of public sector staff who regularly work way above their contracted hours.

Oh, here we go again - let's bash ALL public sector workers. It makes me so angry. I worked in the public sector for 27 years on and off and when I retired two and a half years ago my monthly pension was so small it wasn't even enough to pay tax on! As for the so called "lump sum", don't get me started. I'd like to see some of these posters who moan about public sector services get by without them.

If she is indeed leaving early without any reasonable explanation, how about you and the others doing the same? Or taking a longer lunchtime?

I feel insulted! I worked in a Job Centre for 15 years dealing with very upset or abusive people. Many a time I worked late to prepare giros when the post went missing. There was never enough time to do all that needed to be done. There were very few of us who went along for the ride. I don’t know what areas would allow such skiving.

Running a pub in Ireland was the toughest with an idle drunk of a husband who did little except play golf and drink the profits. This was in excess of 80 hours per week.

My last job was in the private sector. None of the junior staff skived, just the directors and more senior staff.

OP - I’d be very put out if a manager was always leaving early because senior staff were not there. Having said that I’d keep my head down and work out my time.

Thank you MaisieD and Casdon.

Keep your head down & however frustrating it is, keep out of it. You’re due to retire, so in your shoes I’d focus on planning & looking fwd to that and ignore the frustrations caused by the slacker.
There’s more to life …..

What seems important when you are in full time employment just fades away into insignificance when you retire.
Leave it. Retire. Enjoy.

I worked with a lady who very regularly took a Monday off, as sick leave. Staff were very fed up about it and management did nothing. One Monday she came in wearing sunglasses. When she took them off she had a black eye. Most weekends she was subjected to abuse of some kind and if it were visible she would not come to work until Tuesday. She went public and left her husband. Just an example of people having difficulties in private. Of course management knew and supported her by not taking formal action.

I've worked in both and I have to say that public sector had many similar people, Sheian62

Of course there were many people who worked hard and were great employees.

But we did have a few that took advantage. We had a line manager who would regularly disappear half an hour early. Wander in half an hour late.

However she didn't afford such luxuries to her team.

I've never heard of any employer allowing their staff to go early if they'd finished their work for the day though. Paid for 8 hours? Work for 8 hours. It's pretty simple.

We had targets and I regularly did double an hour than needed. By that logic I should have been going home a couple of hours before my shift ended!

It's very annoying for you and if senior management do nothing there's very little you can do.

Our line manager in public sector was somewhat of a racist bully. We all complained. Nothing was done.

pensionpat

I worked with a lady who very regularly took a Monday off, as sick leave. Staff were very fed up about it and management did nothing. One Monday she came in wearing sunglasses. When she took them off she had a black eye. Most weekends she was subjected to abuse of some kind and if it were visible she would not come to work until Tuesday. She went public and left her husband. Just an example of people having difficulties in private. Of course management knew and supported her by not taking formal action.

Awful for lady concerned but taking sick leave? Not sure that would be allowed for any length of time in either the private or public sector.

Also black eyes don't tend to disappear in 3 or 4 days.

Usually a good fortnight for the eye to heal

I once moved to a company to run a department with 2 women employees who had their 2 male managers in thrall. Whenever the managers tried to exercise any management control, the women indulged in tears and tantrums as well as fighting each other, and these two mild older men just did not have the personal resources to deal with them. Everyone else in the wider department was inconvenienced by these women.

Sooner or later these issues have to be resolved and I have no respect for managers who cannot deal with them. That is their job. But most men are scared of emotional women - still are and as a result situations like this arise.

What a lovely post -not - at a time when NHS workers, teachers have put in millions of extra hours to cover for gross under-funding, sick colleagues and thoughtless govt instruction/regulation. But then they have done for decades.

Germanshepherdsmum

Public sector, say no more. Been there, experienced that. Don't get me started. I've seen plenty of people paid by the taxpayer and ratepayer constantly starting late, not doing a stroke until they've finished their tea and planned the evening's telly viewing, leaving early, getting so behind with their work they had to go off sick with (self induced) stress then retiring on very nice pensions, much better than your average private sector worker gets. I was very glad to move into the private sector where realty rules and skivers tend not to get away with it.

I think you'll find that many private companies completely exploit their employees nowadays, expecting them to regularly work way beyond their contracted hours for no extra pay, while also imposing draconian sick leave rules.
That is not something to aspire to.

I've worked in the public sector and yes, there are some slackers and idlers. But there are also many many hard working, talented people with a genuine spirit of public service.

The civil service has also been a compassionate employer of people who would struggle, for reasons of mental health issues or mental disabilities, to be employed by private companies. It made me realise the importance of giving everyone the dignity of a job and the companionship of colleagues.
Again, most (not all) private companies are not that inclusive.

I agree with eazybee.

Sheian62 I feel you pain! I too work in the public sector NHS and it is a disgrace what some senior managers do and are so arrogant in their actions with no comeback.

Get clocking in/out machine. Surprised with being a public funded place there isn't one already. Usually someone from another's office is responsible for making eg adjustment for annual leave, hospital appointments but these are authorised by line managers. Your colleague seems to be working to her own rules. If staff are in unions perhaps issue could be raised through them.

I had a similar manager - except as the building was open she would get in at 5am or earlier, so she did get in a full days work before beetling off at lunchtime! We knew she was in early due to the emails she sent on the internal system. It eventually came to a head when another department needed an urgent decision and no one was there to make it- none of us had the authority to do so. We had to involve senior management. After that a rule was set about the earliest people were allowed to get into work.

I worked with a boss like that. She decided to instigate some new practices, that she insisted that the director had wanted to bring in. We needed to be trained , but my other colleague had hers on my day off and each time I was promised the training, it was "sorry, I have to leave early to go shopping/ hairdressers/ see to my puppy but we will do it another day" That another day never came.
Sadly, if her behaviour has been going on for years and the senior management are turning a blind eye I can only suggest that you involve the union and they may take up the case on your and your colleagues behalf.
I just wonder if her working hours have been changed at all without anyone knowing or if she really is taking the mick ?

We as a group had the same problem about 30 years ago in the public sector.
We decided to go to management after much soul searching only to be told her profits we up and her section worked like clockwork so there was not an issue as far as they were concerned. In fact they told her we had complained and she made our lives hell until one by one we left.Not worth the aggro hang on till you retire and never look back!

You are working in the public sector, so presumably you are all members of a union. Take it up with your union rep.

Otherwise, you could when you retire bring the matter to the attention not only of your and her manager, but to whoever heads the department. Do so a week or so before retiring, so you won't have to dodge the flak.

I worked with a manager like this, years ag. She was not only out of the office all the time, she also arranged meetings and then wasn’t there when the participants turned up! There was nothing we could do, she just exploited the workplace in any way she could, and rarely took responsibility for sorting out her own mess-ups.

This didn’t have a happy ending for me - I left through illness, and she carried on until her contract ran out. But she did leave eventually.

I think inertia sets in with senior managers with this kind of thing. Things are running more or less smoothly, they don’t want to get involved in something which could escalate into an industrial tribunal and a fine. If they do know why she takes a lot of time out, they need to tell anyone who complains that her time off has been agreed by the management!

I think it is very unfair that she is being paid for her full-time work but us leaving early, while the rest of you cover for her but don't get the extra cash for doing her job, too!
That said, if you don't want to do anything then tell the ones who are openly complaining that you have brought it up with upper/higher management previously but that they need to step up to it now. Either that or stop their complaining!!

An eternal problem ! As youre leaving, maybe you could organise an official (looking) letter headed notice it to get stuck to their desk ,along the lines of " time in lieu is a wonderful thing, the company is now deciding to bring in Flexi time! So everyone can work around their lifestyles without work suffering, please submit your preferred hours and reasons for your choice in a confidential envelope to senior management by Friday xx/xx/xx" ............ softly softly catches monkey ?

I don't think it should be ignored as others presumably have to take up the slack in some way. The best outcome would be if this person's line manager took it seriously and started watching and making a note of some of these occasions.
You could take it in turns to find "something you need advice about" when this person has presumably gone away unauthorised and ask another manager about it instead. It could be an opportunity to highlight what's happening without raising a formal grievance.
They could then speak to the person about it and , if there was no health/compelling issue for allowing it, make it more formal with an improvement plan or a process for signing in and out for all levels of staff.
If the immediate line manager or the one above that won't take it seriously, you could go straight to HR . Outcome not guaranteed right enough, so those not retiring would potentially need to be prepared for whatever fallout/nastiness could result. Many HR departments are great, but it can be difficult proving something like this, especially after the person knows it's being looked into.

I've had experience of this also working in the public sector. It is very demoralising and irritating for the rest of the staff who have to stick to the rules. There was one woman who used to announce loudly "right I've had enough today" and then she stood up and put her jacket on and left 2 hours early!! Managers turned a blind eye. Others came in late and left early. Nothing said. They definately were not working their full hours and did not have any reason to be allowed to do this. This is the fault of management who are too cowardly and spineless to challenge their behaviour. If you speak out you will be made to feel that you are in the wrong. If you only have a short time till you retire I would leave it and let them all get on with it. Your post has brought it all back to me - the way it made you feel at work and it's not nice and not fair.