One of my coworkers is using flex time to come in early, stay late, just so they have Fridays off. It's unfair to the rest of the group. We are supposed to work 5 days a week, so now we are left with covering their work on Fridays. Is there anything I can do or say?

I get how that can be a problem for you and your colleagues, but if it's been approved by management there probably isn't much you can do about it. If it really impedes the work, then you should take the matter to whomever approved the request and explain the situation. But from what you're saying, I assume it's just something that's allowed.

Don't hate the player, hate the game

Can you not leave their work/other work for them to do when they come in on Monday? They are working the same number of hours as you, so arrangement seems fair generally.

Can you and your other coworkers do the same? All it would take is having all of you not working on Fridays...

Everyone else should have figured out how to get Friday's off first lol

Start doing the same as your coworker. Management will shut it down quickly when nobody is there on Fridays.

So, this coworker comes in early (when you're not working) and stays late (when you're not working), and you somehow believe you're doing "their" work on the day off they negotiated with management?

Who's work are they doing when you're not there?
Seems like someone's perspective needs a booster shot.

You all should bring this concern up as a team to the manager, I agree it’s not fair to everyone else if the same person is out on Friday and it impacts everyone else, maybe you all can take turns, being out on Friday’s, make a team schedule with management approval and everyone in agreement.

I have 5 direct reports and they are allowed to manage their own time. I don't care when or where they work as long as the job gets done. All of us are work from home. They decided on their own to rotate taking Fridays off all summer. They call it Summer Days Off. They formed the schedule and asked me if it was okay. I was happy to say yes. Read the book "Why work sucks and how to fix it".

I won’t mind them doithat as long as they can perform their duties and finish their tasks. Also, I would prefer working in the office with less people to make me more productive! Don’t get jealous and leave them alone!

I don’t know what reason is that person has been doing it. They may have a grudge against management or maybe they’re just lazy who knows and I understand how you feel but just keep being who you are. It looks better for you if you’re the worker.

Join the the game changer that’s what I did years ago. They made more and worked lesser days. So join the Baylor team. We did 2:16 and 1:8 means we only had to work 3 days a week but got paid like we were at work all week. But of course we worked 2 jobs doing the same thing 🥰

Have you thought that maybe it’s been talked about with upper management and it’s been approved for something that he has to do on fridays? Does he have a wife and kids? Maybe they have an extra curricular activity or they do marriage counseling and it’s just what it is so he can have Friday’s off.. I don’t know just a thought.. sorry it’s giving yall the extra workload I totally understand it, so many people call out every day leaving the rest of us to stay late and cover the shift so I understand it!

This was encouraged in my last team and was known as compressed hours. 4 people in a team of 8 including the head, took either every Friday or every other Friday off.

1 was part time and only worked 28 hours a week - and never worked Fridays.

The head of my team was full time but also never worked Friday's (this was for the 4 years I was in the team)... and someone else returned to the team after a period of maternity leave and did the same... but she also started later in the day (about 9.30 and often didn't finish until around 7pm).

My boss worked Friday every other week, but that meant he had to cover 70 hours in 9 days.

We were not customer facing (we were a team of product managers and business analysts) and were not responding to tickets or anything. We were very often working on our products or features and were not dependent on other people in our team to cover us or have to share work. Team meetings were scheduled on the days everyone was due to be in.

I suspect that our work environment was conducive to allowing this and we were in fact, encouraged to take advantage of flexible working to give ourselves more full days off and enjoy a better work-life balance. The fact that 50% of the team did it suggested it worked for them.

I would suggest that, if this allowed in your organisation - then, as someone else said 'Don't hate the player. Hate the game.'... but maybe play the same game. Maybe, you could do the same if it's allowed. I would expect however, that you might not be able to take Friday's as your colleague is already doing that but working your contracted hours and taking maybe one of the other 4 days of the week off might be an option.

We started doing more flexible schedules, including allowing 4x10s so we worked with everyone to allow some people off Fridays and some people off Mondays. A couple people opted off Wednesdays because they said it would make their weeks go by fast. Instead of being upset by it why don’t you do it yourself if they turn other people down and it’s not a seniority thing then there’s favoritism maybe you could alternate who’s off on Fridays Sometimes management doesn’t even know the problem exists until you bring it to their attention

How is it even effecting you? 40 hrs is 40 hrs a week

I mean you could also do this so you have Monday’s off….

Maybe there was a special circumstance that lead to the approval.

You should do it to

Sounds like they earn those Fridays off by coming early and staying late the rest of the week. Maybe work harder and care less about what your hard working coworker is doing.