This is taken from an article I contributed to in the Irish Independant recently.
Journalist: Katie Byrne
Question
I work as part of a small team in a large tech company. It’s a demanding role, made even harder by the fact that one of my colleagues is extremely lazy. He takes long lunches, he makes dozens of personal phone calls every day and he often leaves early to deal with “family emergencies”.He now works from home two days a week and I honestly think he sends a couple of emails and then clocks off for the day. I went to my manager about it a few months ago and my complaint wasn’t taken seriously at all. He said he’s hitting all his KPIs and that’s all that matters. He also implied that I wouldn’t understand his family commitments. I don’t have kids — and I seem to be in a workplace where parents get special exemptions whereas childfree people like me are expected to work harder. It’s not fair and I’m thinking about speaking to my boss’s boss about it. What should I do?
Answer
It’s clear from your letter that you’re frustrated with your workplace dynamic. What you haven’t made quite clear, however, is what kind of impact it’s having on your day-to-day work life. If your colleague is directly adding to your workload, then the extra tasks this puts on your plate are obviously the cause of your frustration. But if your colleague isn’t directly adding to your workload, and you’re both working toward independent KPIs, then your frustration stems from something else entirely.
“This is a really interesting query as there seems to be some contradiction here,” said career and wellbeing coach Ciara Spillane of Positive Prospects when I shared your dilemma with her. “On one hand you feel your colleague is lazy, but on the other, he is hitting all of his targets.“I would be of the view that as long as their work is being completed to the necessary standards, does it matter how it is being done? Your manager alluded to the fact that you may not understand their family commitments. This could be the reason for the phone calls, and different working hours. If so, then I applaud your colleague for getting the work done while also juggling other commitments.”Assuming your colleague isn’t adding to your workload, Spillane wonders if this is an opportunity for you to create a healthier work-life balance.“A senior leader I worked with gave me great advice — don’t wait until you have kids to set boundaries; work as if you have kids waiting at a bus stop for you each day.“In your case, is there anything that is important to you outside of work such as a hobby, caring commitments or a task that you really enjoy? If so, treat this as an important commitment. Allow yourself to prioritise it and flex your work around it. It sounds as if your manager is open to this flexibility, so embrace it and make it work for you.”
Strategic career consultant Rowan Manahan took a different view when I shared your dilemma with him. “If you are on a similar level and package to your colleague and out of 100 tasks that have to be achieved between you, you are completing twice as many as he is, then your situation is manifestly unfair,” he says.“To my ears, your boss has used the magic words: your colleague is hitting all his KPIs ‘and that’s all that matters’. So first, I would drill into those KPIs and make sure that there isn’t an uneven distribution of workload — if there is, that is a matter for your boss’s boss, as you indicated.”If there isn’t an uneven distribution of workload, Manahan suggests that you seek to start exceeding a couple of the most important KPIs. “Don’t kill yourself to do this, make it happen within normal working hours,” he says. Your goal is to be manifestly better at your job than this loafer is, and make sure that you start managing your boss’s perceptions of your contributions.
The best way to do this is in writing, so use your weekly or monthly update/report to delineate exactly what you have anticipated, solved, achieved or exceeded. That way, at an annual or half-yearly review, you can enumerate on your fingers what you have achieved and how valuable that has been to the business.“The number one way to get ahead in the workplace is to make your boss’s life easier or, at the very least, to make your boss look good to their bosses. It is unlikely that Mr Loafer is doing this, so look upon his sluggishness as a gift to you and take advantage of it.”
I also shared your dilemma with workplace coach and mediator William Corless of The Workplace Podcast, who suggests that you approach this issue with ‘5 As’. “What do you need to alter, avoid, address, anticipate and accept?” he asks. “In this case, the ‘alter’ could be that your approach to work is different to your colleague’s approach. Maybe you need to ask yourself if you are overcommitted.”“On the other hand, perhaps you need to address the issue of workload,” Corless adds. “Is it that you are overcompensating for this person and feeling undervalued then by the manager? Are you not being recognised or acknowledged for the extra work you are taking over? Compensating for the other person might be something you can address with your manager.”Corless doesn’t recommend bringing the issue to your boss’s boss. “There are serious consequences to that as it could undermine your manager.”Ultimately, he encourages you to consider all points of view and possibilities. “What’s really helpful is to go beyond the black and white and look at the complexity. What is the nuance of this situation?”
If you have a dilemma, email k.byrne@independent.ie.
