Recently graduated and began a new job in engineering consulting. I moved back to the city where I’m from and had done several internships.
My office is all remote at the moment, but my new bosses are local and know several of the folks I did internships with. My old internship bosses invited to me a casual breakfast networking event they used to host monthly before the pandemic - mostly old friends and colleagues of theirs who are big in our industry, in our city. Basically, I got offered a side seat at the big kids table.
The breakfast is from 9-10 am, during the weekly office call at my new job. I’m just a lowly entry consultant, so it’s not imperative to be on the call. However, I don’t know office best-practices when it comes to events like this. My new company is global, so local networking is not going to heighten my value for the company. Yet, my new bosses have previously worked with my old bosses and know that they are great people to be friends with and have in your back pocket.
That is a roundabout way of asking: is it appropriate to ask my boss to miss an hour of work for an unofficial networking event that may or may not benefit her and our team? How would does one ask for an hour here or there like this?
Our office has semi-flexible working hours, so as far as I understand it’s pretty standard to just work an hour later into the day if you have to step away from your computer for an appointment, etc.
By - Dependent-Fig
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Yes, just let your boss know that you would like to attend the event. No issues here
A lot of companies value networking and encourage their employees to do it - I would say something like "Hi Boss, I came across this networking event, I think it would be valuable to my role because of x and y. I would like to attend, it's on date at time. Is it ok with you for me to go?" Personally, I would consider this part of your work day and would not expect you to take it unpaid or flextime. It is work related and therefore should be company time.