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OP, I think it is wise put in a little more time before making this request to find out your boss' personality type/flexibility. It also is a little more respectful and appropriate not to ask this at a real early stage of employment there. Depending on the boss, the answer could be anything from a blunt "No" to an enthusiastic "Yes" to "I'll think it over and let you know in a few days" .
However if you do decide to ask him now, definitely tell him you'll shorten your lunch to make up the time.
It would be preferable, though, if you could solve this on your own without asking for a special favor from your boss at a brand new job so early! I think the treadmill at home idea that was suggested earlier gives you that flexibility and convenience. Problem solved!
As much as I love working out at home, and I do that, a treadmill at home isn't a very good form of fitness. I'm racking my brain to think of anything worse, really. I mean I guess a yoga mat and some stretching, that's worse, but treadmills have a higher perceived exertion than ellipticals yet burn FAR fewer calories, like it's not even close actually. That aside, in general, doing cardio is not a good way to spend your precious little workout time. You should be doing resistance training, weights, which is the only way you can exercise both your heart and your muscles. Given that muscularity reduces your chance of fatality from all causes, it's really a win-win. A treadmill at home doesn't get the job done. It's barely better than nothing.
I'm racking my brain to think of anything worse, really. I mean I guess a yoga mat and some stretching, that's worse, but treadmills have a higher perceived exertion than ellipticals yet burn FAR fewer calories, like it's not even close actually.
I like an elliptical way better than a treadmill. Better workout and they don't require electricity.
I'm a manager and have been for many years. As your manager, after I stopped laughing, I would say no, find a gym that opens earlier.
You've only been there 2 months. You are not "special", and no one needs to accommodate your "special-ness". Somehow everybody else on the team manages to do their outside activities without interfering with their work, you should too.
In my view you are still "on probation". This kind of request would be a red flag that you might not work out as a member of the team.
If you are interested in staying at this job long term, and you ever hope to get promoted, don't even ask the question.
If you are under 30, I understand. For some in that generation, their needs are more important than anyone else's, including their job.
This. 2 months and already asking for things???? Especially for the gym? LOL. Nope.
I could understand this sort of attitude for a manager of employees doing hourly shift work involving punching a clock, retail, food service, healthcare, or any position dealing directly with the public during stated business hours, etc. but this is not how any major employer of salaried experienced professionals in a closed office setting I've ever been familiar with treats their employees. If such an employer exists, in today's market it will eventually lose its best employees to other employers who are not so petty. Do you time how long they take in the bathroom too?
My big employer has salaried folks starting their day by choice at anywhere from 5am to 9am. Management doesn't care what time you choose to start, as long as you've established it in advance with your manager, you put in at least 40 hours per week, and you attend any scheduled meetings necessary to perform your function.
I''m not going to address your snark, but it isn't very becoming to a professional in a big company...
I work in an environment where my department is a SERVICE department for other departments. If staff is not available at the time they agreed to on hiring then service to our internal customers may suffer. Without our departments participation some very expensive people in our organization would not be able to work.
I'm very flexible to all my staff if they have a real need (Children, Education, Chronic sick family member) to change their schedule. We discuss it and agree on the best course of action. I'm not a dinosaur, more of a woolly mammoth. But once we agree on a schedule, I expect them to stick to it, until the next issue comes up. My non-probation employees can also request time off, and if it is less than 3 hours, they can make up the time, but they don't abuse the make up time benefit, because they know that "lunch time" is not the same as regular time, which is when most of the company's employees need their attention.
I wouldn't accommodate a two month employee for an issue which is easily solved without involving their employer, as this person is trying to do. As I said, in my mind this person is still on probation, and for me this request so early in their employment is a red flag. During the hiring process they were informed and agreed to a set schedule. I don't see a reason here to deviate from that only 2 months in.
Our business is dependent on our external customers, and they generally operate on a 9-5 basis, so we have to work around those prime office hours too, as does our I.T. department. That's not to say that we don't have some ability to stagger hours, which all the managers do here because THERE IS A BUSINESS NEED to cover more hours, without incurring overtime.
Our HR department operates multiple "wellness" programs. They just did one on the benefits of aroma therapy. All of the programs are during regular work hours.
Most of my staff have been with me for 10 years or more. When our COO's nephew needed a Summer job, our HR department was going to put him in our Marketing department. Our COO nixed that idea. He said, no I want him to have the experience that he would get in X department (mine). This is because he knew of the very positive reports that exiting staff (mostly Summer Help) give when HR does their exit interview. So, I'm confident that I've got the right mix of business needs and staff accommodations in my management style. YMMV
Assuming it's a normal white collar office environment as it probably is given it's an IT job, I don't see why any boss would care. As long as you put in the right number of hours in a day, and get all work done, the bosses who actually care if you come in 15 minute late/stay late or things like that are few and far between. If there is a meeting early that someone needs to be at, they need to be there at that time. If there's a specific job duty to perform at a certain time, the employee should be there at that time. Beyond that, most bosses don't care.
Flex time is the norm. Show up anytime between 6-10 am, put in 8 hours/day, and get all your work done. Companies without that kind of flexibility are losing good candidates (especially in IT)
My last job was an extremely rigid, inflexible, old fashioned office with a manager obsessed with clock watching. I had to sit at my desk until precisely 5 pm, even though I arrived at work more than 30 minutes before my start time. If I left at 4:50 and ran as fast as possible, I could've caught the 5 pm train home, but because I had to stay until exactly 5, then I had to wait for the next train at 5:40.
Now I'm at a place with "core hours", certain hours you have to be in the office, but other than the core hours, you can arrive and leave whenever you want, as long you work your hours within the week. I love the flexibility! I love the fact I'm no longer treated like a little child being reprimanded for ridiculous minutes of time. If I'm all done with work, I leave. If I have something to do, then I stay.
I highly recommend to try to get a job with flexible hours.
My last job was an extremely rigid, inflexible, old fashioned office with a manager obsessed with clock watching. I had to sit at my desk until precisely 5 pm, even though I arrived at work more than 30 minutes before my start time. If I left at 4:50 and ran as fast as possible, I could've caught the 5 pm train home, but because I had to stay until exactly 5, then I had to wait for the next train at 5:40.
Now I'm at a place with "core hours", certain hours you have to be in the office, but other than the core hours, you can arrive and leave whenever you want, as long you work your hours within the week. I love the flexibility! I love the fact I'm no longer treated like a little child being reprimanded for ridiculous minutes of time. If I'm all done with work, I leave. If I have something to do, then I stay.
I highly recommend to try to get a job with flexible hours.
Yeah, that sounds like horrible mismanagement to me. It almost feels like some employers do things because they can. "Well look, you want to get paid, you work exactly the hours we tell you to work and do what we tell you to do, fair is fair." Sure, I mean, it's not that it's unfair, nobody is saying an employer can't set the terms of employment that you accept, clearly. But it also seems unnecessarily rigid and laughable, and as you said, treating your employees like children. The reality is, you can tell your employees as much as you want about what to do, what's expected of them, etc., but just understand if you want to be a d-bag employer, you better be paying the top rates in your industry, because nobody is going to work for your company at $25/hour if every similar company is paying $25/hour and doesn't behave that way. So you'll have to pay your employees $27.50/hour or $30/hour just to force them to stay out of a sense of financial duty to their families or early retirement or whatever. I really question what kind of quality of work you get out of people who you intentionally make unhappy, though. As an employer, I wouldn't want to find out! LOL.
I want my employees to be happy, whatever it takes, I can't just pay more money because our business has set costs and we already get a lot of pushback from clients over costs, so we're incentivized to make sure we hold rates steady or have marginal increases over the years, but in whatever other ways I can, I try to make working for my company a more enjoyable option and that actually saves me money. My top employee has been offered a LOT more money with other companies, and she used to make a lot more before she came to work for me, but she had been out of the work force for a while raising her kids. Now, if she took one of those higher paying jobs, she lives 30 miles from Los Angeles, where most of the similar entertainment field jobs are located, meaning a horrible commute both ways, no picking the kids up from school, no being home in time to cook dinner, and less time with her family. By always going with the work from home model for my company (partially because I don't even live in the state anymore lol), and having the flexibility so that she can go pick her kids up at 2:30 or 3 p.m. every day and just make up the time earlier or later, I've made it an appealing job she doesn't want to abandon even for a ton more money because she values the lifestyle. Ultimately, it's tougher to keep employees who only value money anyway, they'll always be on the move the second a better opportunity arises, so as an employer I'd rather keep my employees by being a great boss and being attentive to the needs of my employees as people, and not look at them like numbers on a spreadsheet or as costs or as assembly line workers making widgets.
There are times you have to demand certain accountability, like with our editor, I can't have him working 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. every day, because that would mean any changes a client requests and are sent to him during the day are never done until overnight, and if he does them wrong or doesn't address them all, we lose another day trying to get back to him. There has to be overlap with my project manager, but if he was around during the day and responded to the changes, maybe working just 2 hours during the actual work day, then did all of the first edits and footage sorting late at night, we wouldn't care, it wouldn't have any impact on the time schedule. So you have to figure out where you can be flexible and where you can't, but it's just baffling to me that 15 minutes would make a difference to any boss unless you're a teller at a bank with such stringent hours that you simply have to work exactly those hours.
Here’s the thing OP. You see, a lot of other employees are depending on the IT group to be accessible when the need arises. While on the surface your request doesn’t seem to be unreasonable, put yourself in the managers position for just a few minutes. Let’s say an employee’s request for a different start time was approved. That’s great for that employee.
What do you do however when the next employee comes to you asking for an adjusted start time in order to get the kids on the school bus? So you tell them NO and give them what you believe to be a fair and reasonable explanation. The employee says they don’t understand because you honored the other employee’s request so he could go to the gym with his buddy. Do you see how this works?
I had to deal with these things many times as a manager and I can tell you I groaned each and every time someone wanted to be the exception “because”. Every person believes their particular situation is special, and therefore worthy of being granted approval. But a manager has to think of the impact to every facet of his business, and that is why I would not generally grant such approval. I didn’t say I never did, because in a couple of extreme hardship cases I did make an exception. Working out at the gym however would not be considered a hardship case.
Sounds like a good plan, just be professional about it and not be demanding.
no its not
hes not factoring delays. Just go to the gym after work or during lunch break
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