Go to bat for my direct report up against the managing partner of my company?
tldr:my direct report overworked against goals year to date and wants to take a 1 month PTO. I argued with my boss and now the big boss wants to talk to me about it. Do I fight for my direct report or let it go?
I work In professional services and my company typically earns income through billable hours. As employees, have set utilization target (billable hours in a week /40) that are set based on level and are yearly attainment based. Utilization does not consider hours that are non-billable or administrative in nature. They are salary plus bonus potential and company policy is to be at 50% utilization or higher to even be considered for bonus.
My direct report is only maybe 9 months in since hire but is absolutely killing it. The clients love them, they don’t really complain and there is already talks about promoting them at year end. They have a utilization goal of 75% but are sitting at just over 100% since hire. Including non-billable hours, they regularly log 50+ hrs a week.
The project they are staffed on is expected to roll off at the end of October. My direct report has floated the idea of taking a full month of PTO after the project rolls off. Strictly mathematical, if they keep at current pace through end of October, they can do this and still far exceed their 75% utilization target.
I view this request as perfectly acceptable being that they have high quality work , still hit their utilization goal and would essentially be their reward for the great work thus far. My direct superior has advised against this as it is poor optics in terms of office politics.
I ended up making a big deal about it to my direct manager and word spread up to the managing partner who now wants to have a conversation about my “frustrations”.
Is my direct reports request unreasonable or is the company expectation unreasonable.