As a leader of an engineering team, I had many people working for me who were balancing their work life with raising young children. When I first became a leader, it quickly became apparent to me how differently employees on my team found a balance between their work and family life, particularly when something anomalous happened in the day to day activities with their children. When the children were sick or needed to be taken to a doctor’s appointment, some of my employees typically just went and picked up their children, and they did what they needed to in order to take care of their child. These employees may or may not have let me know. We had a flexible work environment that allowed for that behavior. I trusted my employees, unless they gave me a reason not to trust them. I expected my employees to just do their job and get the work done. For the most part, when and where they did the work really didn’t matter to me. I measured my employees’ actual performance.
Some of my employees, however, would come into my office when their children had a doctor’s appointment or were sick. These employees would explain to me how much time they were going to be away, exactly how they were going to make up the time, and would proceed to apologize profusely about needing to perform some of their family tasks during working hours. I coached these employees to stop apologizing, and told them that it was perfectly okay to take the time to care for their children. It didn’t matter to me when they did their work. I was flexible.
Why do many employees feel the need to apologize? Life happens. Every employee needs their employer to accommodate their personal life at one time or another.
Balancing work and home life is part of every day life. People who bring their management into too many of the little nuances of what they’re doing with each minute of their day leave an impression that they can’t balance all of their activities, and that the employee is looking for the manager to help them solve their everyday problems.
I had a colleague once tell me, “Never complain, never explain.” I’d like to add to that quote, “Stop apologizing unless there’s a real reason to apologize.” There’s no reason to apologize for taking care of yourself or your family. It’s acceptable, and may be even required to notify your management when you need to take personal time, but don’t apologize for it. If your employer doesn’t have policies in place to allow for you to take care of yourself and your family, you’re likely with the wrong employer.
Copyright 2019 Beyond the General LLC.
Jeanette Kurnik is CEO of Beyond the General LLC. She has 34 years of automotive controls engineering and leadership experience and is an advocate for women in engineering.
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