An email torrent is keeping me from more important work. How do I deal with it?
I am the manager of a small but active membership charity with 12 trustees and many interested members – all of whom seem to email me every day expecting a personal response. The charity has grown significantly over the past 10 years and has four members of staff, but I am the only full-time member of staff while finance and communications roles are part-time.
I was appointed to work on strategic issues, but am constantly distracted by operational issues. Some members have complained if I have passed their emails with queries or comments to other staff members or even other trustees for a detailed reply, as they would like a “personal touch”.
Any advice for dealing with a constant torrent of emails on operational issues when I need to create headspace for strategic issues?
Jeremy says
You were presumably appointed by the trustees, or a sub-committee of trustees, and you must take this problem back to them. It seems clear that the principal role for which you were hired and the actual work as the charity has grown have turned out to be very different in kind.
Looked at from the point of view of your members, of course, they are not “distracting” you from strategic issues. I don’t suppose they’re that interested in strategic issues. Not unreasonably, they see a response to their comments and requests for information and help as being what their charity is in business to provide. If you don’t have the time to cope with them all yourself (and if, as your letter suggests, you slightly resent anything that takes you away from strategic planning) then as the manager it’s your responsibility to see that your members’ concerns are looked after promptly and thoroughly by others.
You should go to your trustees not just with this problem but with a costed solution. It will probably entail taking on an extra member of staff, and will almost certainly entail giving such a person an official title (such as senior adviser) so that members know they’re not being fobbed off with an under-qualified junior.
Your trustees will probably be resistant to such a substantial addition to their fixed overheads, so prepare your case thoroughly and identify any savings you can make elsewhere. There’s a real risk you’ll be thought to be opting out of what the trustees have come to see as your principal responsibility, so be sure to redefine your role specifically so you can been seen to be still more than fully employed.
Readers say
• Emails can come “from” a manager even if they are written and sent by a colleague. “Delegate” has a few tricks up its sleeve in Outlook Exchange. Wiltie
• You need designated email time, and to not reply outside it. It might not get the actual time you’re spending on email down, but it’ll give you at least some uninterrupted time. Also, you need some “stock phrases” you just paste in: thanks for your email; it’s great to hear from you; I’m just going to pass this over to X as he/she has been dealing with this. That kind of thing. fluffybunnywabbits
• It sounds like you aren’t keeping your trustees and members well enough informed – as a result they are in control of the time communication takes rather than you. Schedule time for them and make sure you use it efficiently to involve them to a level that works well for both you and them. flamingo6
• Your enthusiastic trustees are going to have to accept you are now running a professional organisation, and their role is oversight not detail. pandle
I feel swindled out of the salary I deserve and my boss refuses to discuss it
I work for a profitable engineering consultancy. When I joined 18 months ago I was “gazumped” on my salary, with the top boss offering me a lower sum shortly after I verbally accepted. At the time I felt put out, so they agreed in writing to put it up to my ideal figure at the one-year mark.
During the year I was promoted to a senior position. I received great praise from clients and even took on a small side project, saving the company a contractor’s fee. I waited until my appraisal at 14 months to try and ask for a slight raise on the first offer, to reflect my new role. Having researched and practised my argument, I was floored when my line manager opened the discussion with a firm and final acknowledgement that the number would be the one mentioned in the contract.
I tried to politely ask if there was any room for negotiation since that figure was based on a different role, which I’ve now exceeded. She said she would get back to me. When she didn’t, I emailed with a suggested calendar date to meet and chat, including about how to set some general objectives. She emailed back with a very blunt affirmation that the contracted number was all I was getting. It was also clear that any further discussion was closed for another year, and that I “need not worry about setting personal objectives”.
I feel hurt and angry that she didn’t have the guts to open a discussion face to face. Since the email, I have been excluded from team meetings and there is a frosty atmosphere from the MD and my line manager.
Jeremy says
One of the most difficult things to do when trying to give advice is to determine not what actually took place, but the manner – the style – that the participants adopted. You can’t gauge manner from a written text.
As a result of your promotion, the praise you received from clients and your work on the side project, the request you made for a raise larger than the figure in your initial contract must have seemed entirely reasonable. But it was brusquely turned down and the atmosphere has been frosty ever since.
Right and reason seem to be firmly on your side. You’re not only hurt but baffled, and so, I must confess, am I. I can only assume – and please accept that this is a guess, not an accusation – that something in your manner got under your manager’s skin. Think about it as open-mindedly as you can. Could you have seemed a bit pushy? A little too full of yourself? When you say you “researched and practised” your argument, could you have come across, after only 18 months, as seeming to think you knew better than your manager?
Before you let your resentment build to a point of no return, think about it carefully. I’m not suggesting she was right and you were wrong; just you may have underestimated her sensitivity.
Readers say
• Find another job at a decent company. But remember, when interviewed for other roles you need to tell them why you want to leave your current employer, and they won’t want to hear what you’ve said here. Find a company with good standards and contracts so it gives you something positive to say, eg, “I want to work for you”, rather than “I hate my current employer!” TomBridges
• Start a job search. Leave your current company. They sound like a bunch of idiots. It isn’t even about not giving you the money, it’s about the way they are handling the situation. Why work for a company like that? Work your butt off until you find that new employer. Make friends with everyone. Become “indispensable”. It will hurt that much more when you leave. paulc1318
• Lesson learned: never ever accept a promise of more money. Vee12
Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.
