I recently started a new job, but since the pandemic started, have always worked well beyond/past "normal business hours" for any number of reasons (small children, utilizing flexbility, WAY understaffed, etc.) and as I'm still moonlighting, I'm definitely outside of those these days . This is what I have in my signature block for my moonlighting gig:"I am currently working non-traditional hours. As such, please know that I honor and respect boundaries around personal time, well-being, care-taking and time off. Should you receive emails from me when engaging in any of the above, please protect YOUR time and wait to respond until you are working. Prioritize joy when and where you can! (thoughtfully borrowed)"On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 1:27 PM Archer, Kirsten A <xxxxxx@tuftsmedicalcenter.org> wrote:Kara, You bring up a good point! The a great benefit of working remotely, or at least having flexible hours, is the ability to take care of urgent issues that arise at home.
I don’t have advice to what to put in your signature (great idea though!), but I think one in this situation may benefit from using some of the advance email settings that allow scheduled release of emails. I use this feature both (1) when I am working odd hours and (2) when I want to honor a colleague’s PTO and have the email arrive after they’ve returned to the office. This way, I get something off my plate, but the recipient doesn’t have to deal with it until normal workings hours. It’s been so useful to me.
Gmail and Outlook both have this feature and I’d bet other email providers do too.
Best,
Kirsten
From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org [mailto:xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org] On Behalf Of Luckey, Kara
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2022 12:50 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: [EXT] RE: [RESADM-L] RE: Taking PTO without Guilt
EXTERNAL MESSAGE - TREAT LINKS/FILES WITH CARE
Love this thread and appreciate Lacey’s wise articulation, as usual!
Another element that makes the issue of work/life ‘balance’ so complex is that many (perhaps particularly those with caretaking responsibilities) value the flexibility to work after hours. Case in point: Seattle is now on the 4th day of a teachers strike with no end in sight that has left kids home unexpectedly and parents juggling childcare. Even under ‘normal’ circumstances I often use early mornings/after bedtime/weekends to catch up on emails and work that requires close concentration, and the openness of my employer to flexible hours and remote work has been critical for my being able to maintain high standards. However, I’m also aware that my flexibility to send emails at off-hours may set expectations for others in ways that I don’t intend.
I’ve been meaning to figure out a way to acknowledge this in my signature block – I’m therefore curious, does anyone have suggestions for ‘disclaimers’ in signatures that say something to the effect of, ‘I acknowledge that I am sending this outside of business hours, and have no expectation that you do the same’? Feel free to reply directly to me (xxxxxx@seattleu.edu) and I’ll compile any responses.
Kara
**********
Kara Luckey, PhD (she/her)
Sponsored Research Officer
Office of Sponsored Projects | SEATTLE UNIVERSITY
xxxxxx@seattleu.edu | 206.818.3443
Working remotely – Please reach out via email, phone, or Teams
Seattle University is located on occupied Coast Salish land and the homelands of the Duwamish people. Our community wishes to pay respect to Coast Salish Elders past and present as well as to their descendants and to all Indigenous people.
From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org>
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2022 9:01 AM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: RE: [RESADM-L] RE: Taking PTO without Guilt
I don’t have time to reply with all the things I’d like to say, but I’ve been thinking about this discussion a lot as I read it while working on my days off and over the weekend.
One part of the discussion that I think has been missing is the role of the funding agencies in creating this type of atmosphere as well. In particular, I am remembering a very disheartening email correspondence I had with a certain federal agency about whether their acceptable late policy would ever include the serious illness or death in the family of the AOR.
Jessica Ruth Moise
Grants and Contracts Officer
Senior Associate Dean for Sponsored Programs
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
(formerly Mount Sinai School of Medicine)
(212) 824-8300
(212) 241-3294 (fax)
Please know that I honor and respect your personal time. If this email comes to you after your work hours, there is no expectation to respond until you’re back at work, unless it makes your life easier.
From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org> On Behalf Of xxxxxx@gmail.com
Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2022 1:07 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: RE: [RESADM-L] RE: Taking PTO without Guilt
USE CAUTION: External Message.
Question for ponder – what if we STOPPED DOING THIS TO OURSELVES? As in…literally just STOP:
- Working well past standard hours
- Working weekends
- Working sick
- Working during vacations
- Saying ‘yes’ to extra responsibilities without extra compensation
- Telling leadership we need more people, but then getting all the work done thus proving we don’t
What if instead we STARTED:
- Leaving on time
- Staying unplugged on weekends and during vacations
- Taking the time we need to heal when unwell
- Negotiating special pay increases for temporary workload increases (and ensuring they are only temporary)
- And hear me out…letting the consequences of understaffing be borne by the institution instead of our mental health and families
We are critical pieces of the research enterprise. Research needs us and it needs us at our best. Imagine how much more attractive our profession would be to new recruits if the sales pitch didn’t come with so many disclaimers about how stressful and demanding it is?? Imagine how much less fraud we’d have if institutions were forced to pour more resources into appropriate staffing/workloads? I’m sure to some I sound like a broken record, and I’ll keep repeating it until they kick me out of the profession: we are the only catalyst for change. There’s no research administration labor union, there’s no RA Senate, etc. It is up to each of us to “vote” with our employment, so to speak. Until we start setting these boundaries and leaving positions/institutions that aren’t making real strides in the direction of sustainable solutions, we will continue to live in this cycle of burnout.
Lacey Rhea
Research Administration Manager and Mentor
(c) 352-235-0756; xxxxxx@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lacey-rhea-590518157/
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are my own and not those of my employer.
From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org>
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 1:40 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] RE: Taking PTO without Guilt
I have actually seen several co-workers take "vacation time" to specifically do work without the stress of people calling and emailing them. I have done the same, putting PTO on my calendar as a way to not be bothered while I try to catch up with work that I had been putting off, but is extremely important, but gets delayed due to fires, etc.
We, too, are skeleton crews where there is basically one person per job/duties. So, if we take actual "relax and enjoy" vacations, no one else can do our jobs. As people leave, their jobs get added to others instead of replaced with a whole new person, compounding to the issue.
For a company to say that the solution to burnout is requiring PTO of employees but not helping to provide reasonable, attainable amounts of work for employees is a facade, and NOT a real solution. Companies must learn better how to divvy out fair, attainable workloads AND provide means for employees to take PTO that doesn't just end in piled up work upon their return.
On Fri, Sep 9, 2022 at 1:24 PM Weaver, Sherri L. <xxxxxx@bcm.edu> wrote:
I can relate. I’m on vacation right now, but fear of next week has me working anyway ☹
No one’s fault but my own though.
From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org> On Behalf Of Daniels, Lisa
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 12:08 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] RE: Taking PTO without Guilt
***CAUTION:*** This email is not from a BCM Source. Only click links or open attachments you know are safe.
Hi Tasha,
I was just sitting here thinking, “My brain is totally burnt out…I should just take the rest of the afternoon off”. However, like many of you, I dread the thought of returning to more work on Monday (or, gasp…trying to make it up on Saturday and Sunday, as I have been doing). We are shorthanded as most are, and the piles of important tasks are growing exponentially.
I am at the maximum annual leave accumulation limit at my institution, but, since I’ve been here so long, I receive 2 annual days off per month, but each month, I struggle to find time to take my “use them or lose them” days—because I sure don’t want to lose any annual leave. This summer, I went on a 7 day vacation with my husband to visit my daughter in New England, but there was a major appropriations award that we had to apply for during this time, so I had to take my laptop and work most of the time while I was traveling (so, it really wasn’t a vacation).
Should employers mandate that employees take PTO? In a perfect, well-staffed world, that would be completely awesome! However, in reality of our skeleton-staffed, overtaxed, undertrained world where there are not enough bodies to add more workload….what do we do? For me personally, I think I am just going to have to take charge for my sanity and take the time off….but, there again is the issue of being greeted with more work upon my return.
I am interested to hear the thoughts of others. Meanwhile, I think I will take the last 2.5 hours of the day as PTO—you all talked me into it.
Lisa S. Daniels, CRA, CPRA
Senior Grant & Contract OfficerJoan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University
Marshall University Research Corporation
1 John Marshall Drive, BBSC 435M
Huntington WV 25755-0002xxxxxx@marshall.edu
phone: (304) 696-3368
From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org>
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 12:51 PM
To: xxxxxx@LISTS.HEALTHRESEARCH.ORG
Subject: [RESADM-L] Taking PTO without Guilt
Hello Happy Friday!
I posted this article from LinkedIn to our work Teams chat and received feedback from team-members and would love to know your thoughts and advice on how to take PTO, relax and feel confident your desk is covered without the guilt of possibly putting more work on others…….………..
Job requirement: Take allotted PTO
By Maria Villarroel, Editor at LinkedIn News
The pandemic has led to many a longer work day, which has increased work-related stress and levels of burnout. As a result, some businesses are requiring employees to take a vacation in order to create a better company culture. For instance, Goldman Sachs is requiring staffers to take at least 15 days of leave a year, with the goal of preventing burnout and increasing worker satisfaction. Can this be effective? One business school professor says in order for this to succeed, company culture must incentivize time off and managers must encourage and respect PTO and not hold it against workers.
Team member 1: I wonder if Goldman Sachs employees come back from their vacation buried in work that either piled up or has been waiting for their return. I would love to take more time off and have plenty of PTO banked to cover it -- challenge is for every day of PTO I take, it puts me back week(s) of getting buried under emails and requests and volumes of work that exacerbates the stress and burnout
Team member 2: Honestly, I'm with you. It stresses me out. Coming back to the mountain of emails feels like punishment. I'm not NOT doing work by being out - I'm just adding it to the pile on other days. And if I'm gone long enough to utilize coverage, I just feel guilty that my coworkers, who are already drowning, are now taking on my water, too. I know I need to get better about just going and not feeling bad about it, but not sure how to do that!
Jatasha Haralson (Tasha), MBA, MRA
Operations Manager- Research
Office of Sponsored Projects Administration
Research Administrative Services
Mayo Clinic
4500 San Pablo Rd. S., Jacksonville, FL 32224
Email: xxxxxx@mayo.edu
Phone: 904-953-1363
Pager: 904-953-4270
NOTE: OSPA staff are working remotely. We have full access to emails and our phones are forwarded to address any questions and/or concerns. We also have access to MS Teams and Zoom for meetings.
Service Excellence: Consistently meeting or exceeding the customer’s needs in a reliable and timely manner while communicating effectively throughout the engagement.
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