Back in September, my wife and my son was stillborn. At the time my work and management team were very supportive. We officially have 40 hours of Bereavement leave, but I got approved to take an additional 40 hours of leave to mourn, grieve, and find some semblance of normal. After two weeks away, I returned to work and things seemed fine: Nothing had blown up in my absence, and I was able to get back to that grind.
On the morning of October 31st, I began my day by reviewing my work email and read through one titled “Utilization”. My director explained that my current utilization rate was below my (read: corporate’s) utilization goal. (Utilization rate is a ratio of time billed to clients over the total number of hours I could work.) My director asked if I was aware of this deficiency and if I had a plan in place to meet the utilization goal by the end of the calendar year. In my response, I noted, prior to my bereavement leave I was comfortably above my utilization goal, and I asked if the current utilization rate erroneously included my bereavement. The director’s response blew me away: No, the bereavement leave is included intentionally; it negatively impacts utilization because it is treated as if it was vacation time.
Fast forward to last week, I’m sitting in a Teams meeting with my manager and director to discuss my performance and corporate goals progress. I dance around my lack of goals progress (expected parental leave and actual bereavement leave ruined any chance of achieving the goals management made me put together back at the start of the year). The conversation came back to the dreaded utilization conversation. I explained I am still under the utilization goal but I had a plan to hit the utilization goal by year end. (My plan is to just charge more hours for the same work I do and “being available” for more tasks that never get actualized.) I also added if bereavement leave was excluded from the utilization rate I would exceed the goal handily. I decided to be honest with management and tell them that this approach to utilization calculation was upsetting and essentially communicated, “Oh yeah, you can mourn and recover from a traumatic event, but just make sure to make up your time and not cry while the clock is on!”
Neither manager nor director said anything for half a minute before clumsily shuffling onto the next topic on their checklist. Since then, on multiple occasions I've tried bringing the topic up to come to an understanding with management, but I've been treated to silence each time. Management may not care, but thanks for reading and listening to my frustrations.