Life-work balance (has to be in this order) starts with mutual respect and consideration for each other’s private time.
In my days as a Practice Lead I was ending most of my communications with: “Work smarter, not harder“. That’s because I value people that bring in results and solutions, instead of working themselves to death for a poor outcome. I’ve never been a fan of seat-warmers or companies that focus on clocking employees rather than the work they deliver.
Overtime is and must stay an exception
Sometimes overtime is required to meet project milestones or tight deadlines. Even in such times, best thing to do is ask for volunteers and not impose it. Being exceptions, everyone can be reasonable enough to understand them, but it’s never acceptable to turn overtime into business-as-usual. I’ve explained in this article how bad contracts can lead to a chain effect. Many years ago I have declined a good job offer (in terms of both money and title) because the direct manager was a workaholic who was considering it absolutely normal to work from 8am to 10pm and couldn’t understand how others can be so ‘irresponsible‘ to end work on time. That position was open for 6 months when I got contacted by the head hunter, and it stayed open for another few months.
Be respectful of others when scheduling meetings
In Outlook, you can set the calendar to display two time zones to view at any given moment the correspoding hour for a remote team. Checking participants’ calendar has been an option for years, in many calendar systems. There are also plenty of widgets to display several time zones. Second, don’t block a full hour if all you need is 10 minutes…
Friday evening is never a good time for business. I don’t feel I should explain this one. If I should, one of us is in the wrong place.
A shift in working hours can be a cause for attrition if the employee didn’t sign up for it. Whenever you apply for a company or join a project, the working schedule should be known – much like the social contract we have during training. If a person enrolls for a 9-17 schedule, shifting it some time later with 2 hours (w/o mutual agreement) will disrupt that person’s personal life and will stir conflicts.
It’s never ok to ask people to cancel their vacation
Normally, PTO (paid time off) is negotiated in advance. It’s never (or never should be) a one-sided decision. As long as minimal level of operational service is kept, it should be ok. There can be rare exceptions when you actually have to recall someone from vacation. Those are such situations that require no other explanation besides the fact itself. Example: a whole banking system goes down and there’s only one guy who can fix it.
I happen to know a real case, the story of an acquaintance, in which one bank has run into trouble and they had to bring back from holiday a key employee. But they were fair to the end: they paid for the interruption and flight back and then granted the guy and his fiancée, a trip of their choice with a very generous budget (which was basically worth pennies for them, compared to the damage they would’ve faced without him troubleshooting). But this is rare.
In any other context, asking people to cancel their vacation, will be a one-time action, as I can guarantee that person will start looking for another job the very next day.
It’s not ok to call people outside working hours for work-related demands
Ok, by exception, it may be necessarry and a reasonable, well fundamented, exception can be understood. I remember I was travelling some years ago, meeting a customer the next day. All the work was done, presentations sent, so I had my evening off in the city, meeting some friends. At 10pm I got a phone call from a local co-worker, requesting for new updates and materials. The work was done in the end, at night, but that was our last collaboration.
What I would recommend everyone in the end is: be careful what pattern you set. If you tell everyone: “Just call me anytime, it’s ok” and people get used to calling you any time of the day, because you said it was ok, then don’t start complaining.
Be mindful of others.
