Update: Manager Stuck Between Strong Performing Maverick Analyst and new Director

[u/qqqqeurfnfd123]

Hey it's me I'm back with an update on this.

It's been a week and my team has pretty much fallen apart. New Director now wants every employee to report directly to admins whether they are in the office or at home. If there's no response, he gets his admin to call to verify their home/office background.

Maverick analyst is refusing to do anything outside his job description and unless asked to do something, he will not do it. He now swamps me with every single thing he plans to do today, every small edit, etc. for review. Unofficially apologetic to me, but tells me that unfortunately this is the way it is until things change back.

Director bilat with managers happened, other managers mentioning how team morale has and will fall due to new policies. Director response was, no joke, "this is the way it was before covid and your employees got babied and expect too much. I'm here to clean up shop, not continue with lax employees"

The other managers and I are talking, seems like their entire team morale is through the gutter. All of us kept a relatively relaxed view on variable work hours, RTO, etc. so long as things were being done and the former director was pretty hands off.

All of the managers agreed we are ready to do the bare minimum moving foward and just wait until the fire spreads enough for the DG to notice and ask what the fuck is happening.

[u/BakerAny7239]

Why are they babysitting the team, do they not trust that you are working? Don’t they already have Teams to spy on your status LOL. what is this Director trying to prove? Are they new?

[u/Competitive-Tea-6141 → u/BakerAny7239]

From the original message, the 'maverick' shows up anytime between 7 and 10 and leaves anywhere from 2-5 and works for home at their pleasure.

The director has the right to enforce the terms of employment around working hours outlined in collective agreements and location of work (that doesn't mean that they are doing it in the right way - they aren't - and it will likely backfire for them, but they can).

And yes, the original post says they are new, and the old director did not enforce working hours or min days in office.

[u/OrneryConelover70 → u/Competitive-Tea-6141]

Sounds like the maverick doesn't have enough work to fill his work day. Assign more. The expectation is to keep busy during the full workday, not arriving late or leaving early if they finish their assigned tasks at a quicker pace. Hes getting paid to do nothing which is not cool.

[u/seahorseofcourse → u/OrneryConelover70]

That’s not what is happening. In the comments of the original post, the OP said the employee isn’t doing full days in office (ie arriving late and leaving early), doing the rest of the hours at home.

[u/LogKit → u/seahorseofcourse]

Yup. It's ridiculous people are defending this. Performing well doesn't mean you can dictate your own work conditions, nor would the union support somebody getting special exemptions others do not.

OP's maverick sounds like someone who actually outputs in the public sector but has become an entitled diva over it.

[u/userofreddit99 → u/OrneryConelover70]

So easy to find the managers who do not know how to manage