Are you invaluable?  How about irreplaceable?  Will the world stop turning if you don’t pick up the phone or answer that email? No?

OK, so why are you ignoring your family (or friends or yourself??) to pick up the phone?  It’s very easy for companies to take advantage of employees & even more so managers who feel a personal responsibility for the performance of the team and department.  Now I’m not talking about those of you who get paid for being “on call” – unfortunately, I’ve found that Managers rarely get compensated for this – but rather the ones who don’t. 

Companies need to understand and realize that employees lives and health are at stake and for some of you (you know who you are) … their family lives also.  Staff needs time away from work and away from the stresses of the job if for no other reason than to recharge their batteries for the next day.  In addition, if staff members are constantly contacted outside of regular business hours than their staffing and hiring needs to be looked at and examined.  

Management needs to create and have in place a proper escalation plan for customers of course and a Manager should be included in there at the appropriate level.  However a Manager should not be the FINAL point of escalation and if Customers matter (which all companies state, but few actual shows), Senior Management should also form part of that plan and in addition, perhaps appropriate out of hours coverage should be put into place!