Advice Requested - Being Contactable while on Annual Leave

Tzardine

Hi Guys ,

I have a question that I would appreciate your opinions on .

I recently took a few days annual leave. While on leave I got a message on my personal phone to call my boss. He was giving out that I had my work phone turned off while I was off. I told him that I was not contactable as I was on holidays and he went mad. Ended up in a barney over the phone.

Since I have come back he is nit picking and looking for things to pull me up on. He says that he wants to meet me regarding the phone being turned off.

IMHO im not obligated to be contactable while on annual leave. There is nothing in my contract which says otherwise.

What do you think ?

Nody

I guess it depends on how senior your position is; I'd always be expected to be available in general (and I got calls in Thailand, Greece and other locations during holidays) due to my position. On the other hand I know in the finance industry you're literally not allowed to be reachable for the two weeks window you're out due to SOX.

In the end it's going to come down to a question of seniority, your status for your projects/tasks (i.e. is there anyone else to do them or does it have to go via you) and general company culture (i.e. my company know they can call me but it's only done if it has to be me to give an answer and it can't wait).

Irish_Elect_Eng

Yes, it depends on your role.

As with the previous poster, there is a certain expectation with seniority and responsibility. For example, I have financial approvals authority that I cannot delegate, but I can approve verbally or by email. This would normally take a couple of minutes so no biggie. Business critical decisions and my desire to manage good relationships mean that I generally don't mind as long as people don't pull the piss.

But there is also a need for good companies to respect employees privacy and their need for downtime to recharge, so normally it is the last option to call folks on a break. .

nogoodnamesleft

I used to have no problem answering my phone during annual leave or outside office hours until the organisation I was working for at the time began to take the piss.

I ended getting called by my boss in at late at night and early in the morning by early I mean 5:00am. Anyway in the end I did not answer a number of calls one week I was on annual leave.

Got pulled aside when I returned to work to the following week . Outlined that I had no problems in the past answering calls to colleges, boss or customers but the arrangement had been abused. By abuse I mean silly trivial matters or topics that could have been dealt with when I was back in the office.

I asked my boss if the organisation would be willing to pay me to be on call as arrangements similar to this existed within organisation. The request was declined and that was the end of it.