Current Events > Would you say it's fair to say to an employee, hey I let you go home early...

(+) Yeah! (+)

all they time, can you at least help me out from time to time and stay like an hour after your shift is supposed to end (paid obviously, hourly job), otherwise I can't help you out and let you go home early so you'll just have to work your complete shifts.

Context. Work with a lot of young people 18-24. A lot of them always ask to go home early to either do school work, meet with family, go to parties, etc. If it gets slow, I have no problem letting people leave earlier whether it's 1 hour or 4 hours early. Most guys don't mind helping since I help them out, but there's always 1 or 2 people who never want to help out even though I help them out.

It's important to remember that employees aren't your chess pieces. They're people with lives that don't revolve around work.

No, that is not fair

people plan on being scheduled a certain window for work. You should never expect them to work outside that window last minute

Well it seems like a lil bit of quid pro quo. Myself I dont see anything wrong. Youre doing them a favor so one would expect every now and then to be reciprocated.

Sounds like you could get yourself fired here. Be careful.

Remember, you are doing two things wrong, by letting him go early, and then by making him work un-paid. Even though you are ultimately being the "cool boss", you are crossing a big line by telling a guy to work after his paid shift ends.

Did you make that deal beforehand, or are you just guilt-tripping them to staying? If you say, "Hey, I'll let you leave early today but then you have to stay late tomorrow, " your giving them a choice. If you're just expecting people to shift their lives around for your poor planning, don't expect things to work out every time.

At less formal companies this sort of thing is no big deal, like nobody would have really cared at my previous company where we only had 6 people, but my current company is a lot bigger and more "by the book" so it would not fly.

Only thing I would say is maybe frame it a little differently. Instead of "I let you go early the other day, so can you stay late today?" it should be "if you stay late today I'll let you leave early on a different day." That way they can even plan what day they want to leave early, and it's more of a comp time situation

An employee owes you nothing beyond their schedule. If they can't work their full shift, accept that or refuse to let them go early.

Honestly, I hated when a previous job would let me go early because "We're slow" or "We're need to slash some budget this week".

No.

I manage a movie theater where the company whines about payroll when slow so we have to cut. On the other hand, they will tell us to add shows at the last minute, especially for Thursday night premiers that are busy. I've always been of the mindset of I cannot force staff to stay. I'll ask, plead, incentive it, but if they say no, I thank them and that's the end of it.
It is what it is