Flexible working policies such as remote work, hybrid work, and parental leave can be enforced in ways that penalize employees. In one remote role, a manager used explosive outbursts to undermine work and dismissed remote work as unacceptable while working from home himself. When a child was sick during a call, the manager accused the employee of not paying attention and not being committed, then dismissed the need for the employee’s caregiving. In another job, expectations to remain reachable extended into time off, including restrictions on laptop use during PTO and withholding information from colleagues. The manager required calls within earshot and treated missed time due to a car battery as PTO rather than lunch time.
"“You're not paying attention! You're not committed!” He then dismissed remote work as “BS”-as he himself was working from his large house in the country. When Yelland asked what he did when his own child was sick, he replied: “That's what his mother is for.” She says she hid her daughter from the camera on future videoconference calls, and sent him her resignation notice shortly thereafter."
"“Everyone was off in the corners whispering,” she recalls. She later learned the team had struck a new deal with a big brand, but colleagues had been told not to fill her in because she “wasn't available after hours.” Her boss also demanded that Yelland take all calls within her earshot, and one morning when Yelland's car battery drained, she was told to use PTO for the hour missed rather than count it as her lunch hour."
"“I got sick and tired of having to deal with company policies developed for the right reasons, but interpreted in the wrong way,” she explains."
Read at Fast Company
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