Manager is upset because I asked HR to clarify a company policy after he had explained it to me

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I am a new hire and recently had my first 3-month review. I got an overall satisfactory rating, but was criticized for being away from my desk too much. According to my manager, my lunchtime (rarely over 30 minutes) does not count towards the 8 hours of work expected each day. He told me this was informed at the orientation, but I did not remember this to be so.

I checked the handbook later and found the policy mentioned there:

Employees are expected to work between the core hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. or as defined by their specific client contracts. Flexible scheduling, or flextime, is available in some cases to allow employees to vary their starting and ending times each day within established limits. Flextime may be possible if a mutually workable schedule can be negotiated with the supervisor involved. However, issues such as staffing needs, the employee’s performance and the nature of the job will be considered before approval of flextime.

A one-hour lunch is provided to you each day, schedule permitting. Lunch breaks should be taken between the hours of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in order for employees to be available at optimum times for our customers, both internal and external. Employees who elect not to take lunch on a given day may be allowed to leave early upon supervisory approval prior to ending the work day. Employees are relieved of all active responsibilities and restrictions during meal periods and will not be compensated for the time.

I found the policy ambiguous so I emailed Mary from HR, who had done my orientation:

Hi Mary,

I was just reading the handbook and I wanted to clarify the lunchtime policy--in order to get in my minimum eight hours, if I were to come in at 9 and take an hour lunch away from my desk, I would need to stay until 6, correct?

Best, Anon

She forwarded it to another HR rep because she was not familiar with the handbook enough to answer the question. The HR rep responded that my manager was indeed correct, and cc'ed my manager on her response. Apparently, HR conversations are not as confidential as I had been led to believe.

My manager wrote me an angry email:

I am very surprised to see that you are casually asking about this again after we discussed this topic in detail during your 90 day review. I have reached out to Mary as well and we are certain that she didn't discuss a 40 hour work week including lunches and breaks, during the orientation. Mary has been conducting these employee orientation sessions for years and this is the first time an employee walks away from the session thinking that the 40 hour work week includes lunches and breaks.

In addition, though I reinforced the expectations again during your review about 40 billable/productive hours. As a salaried employee, the expectation is for every member of our team to put forth a full 8 hour day, and if needed, additional hours to ensure we meet project and client expectations. Let me know if we need to discuss this in more details.

This took me by surprise because I didn't think I had done anything wrong. Moreover, even before the HR's confirmation, I had immediately acted upon his feedback, and there have been no complaints otherwise.

How, if at all, should I respond?

manpreet 2 years ago

It's disappointing that HR felt the need to copy your manager and that your manager is so seemingly insecure that they perceive this as a slight against them. Nevertheless, you are learning about your company, its environment, and workforce practices as a whole. To that end, a few thoughts...

• I'm surprised to see that you were initially under the impression that breaks do count towards work hours. In my experience, it has always been the case that work hours do not include lunch and breaks that you may take, though different company cultures may be more or less flexible on a daily/weekly hour requirement.
• HR is there to serve the company and implement its policies. While there may be some internal guidelines on how interactions should be shared and there are some laws governing particular pieces of information, in general you shouldn't expect any kind of "doctor-patient confidentiality" when speaking to them. I would find it odd that they CC'd your manager, but perhaps they were simply trying to let them know that you received something in writing from HR regarding a policy so that a formal record was made in case the manager disagreed.
• Your manager does seem overly hostile or aggressive on this note. Take a look at your company culture - is it a very formal, structured, 'old-school' environment? Do you refer to all higher-ups as 'mr/mrs X'? Do your coworkers have a rigid schedule and stick to 8hrs/day minimum? You may be in an environment that lacks the more flexible work/life balance of many modern companies. It may also be that your manager perceives you as doing less work than you could be capable of (regardless of quality) or that you are a new hire and thus they want to be more strict with you before giving you some flexibility.

In any case, your manager does seem to be pretty perturbed. Regardless of the validity of their umbrage or how reasonable it may seem, they brought this to your attention with a wall of text and it's prudent to respond. Assuming you're physically nearby, I suggest stopping by and letting them know:

1. You appreciate that they addressed their concerns about your presence at your desk and apologize sincerely if you gave the impression of slacking off.
2. You were checking with HR to get the 'long-winded' version of the company policy regarding working hours to ensure that you weren't accidentally making any other faux pas.

If your previous experience is in hourly work, mention that you are still getting familiar with a more structured and salaried position and reiterate that you appreciate them speaking with you about it instead of giving you a poor review.