a manager (not mine) told me to stop organizing lunchtime yoga

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager .
A reader writes:
I work for a large corporation. There are 30 people who do my job. We are divided in to three teams of 10, each with one manager. Our culture encourages taking lunch hours, and it’s common for people to leave the building, schedule an appointment, or eat together in the break room.
When we went back to work in person in 2021, I asked my manager if I could use empty conference rooms for 20-minute yoga practice. While working from home in 2020, I got used to a movement break and didn’t want to give it up if I didn’t have to. My manager gave me a green light as long as the room was empty. Within a few weeks, a few other people expressed interest so I started a Slack channel for the building. On Sunday night, I check which rooms are available and post where and when yoga will happen that week. The practices are about 20 minutes, streaming free on YouTube, beginner level, and some are even labeled as stretching. It varies by schedule, but we have about 10 people at each practice.
Another team’s manager left and was replaced with a new manager, Polly. Earlier today, I was chatting with my manager, Henry, in the foyer when Polly approached us. She asked if I arranged yoga and I said yes. She said, “I think you need to reconsider this. You are spending a lot of time on an extracurricular that is intended for your personal time. It’s also an exclusive activity, anybody with mobility issues cannot participate.” Henry interjected that my productivity is excellent and nobody has ever complained. Polly said that people might not feel comfortable complaining but it was likely making them feel excluded. Henry told me I have his permission to continue yoga practice.
I know I technically can continue, but I am not sure if I should. Specifically, I have these questions:
1. I have worked under Henry for four years, including during Covid, and have seen him navigate all sorts of complicated situations and difficult issues. He is always a good listener and measured in communication. With Polly, he was blunt and almost dismissive. Do some managers treat their peers differently than direct reports? Is it possible they have a conflict I am unaware of and yoga practice is a stand in for whatever issue they have? Or was Henry frustrated because Polly asked for something irrational, which leads me to question 2.
2. Is lunchtime yoga practice exclusionary and that is a good reason to stop it?
3. If I do not stop lunchtime yoga, should I let the participants under Polly (two regulars) know that she really doesn’t like this practice?
I get a lot of benefits from lunchtime yoga practice and I do not want to quit, but I will if it’s the right thing to do. I could use some help reading this room.
What on earth! Polly is being ridiculous — and Henry was letting her know that.
First, her statement that you’re “spending a lot of time on an extracurricular that is intended for your personal time” makes no sense, since you are doing this on your lunch break. You’re not organizing an hour of daily yoga during work time; it’s on your break time, and it’s none of Polly’s business if you choose to use your lunch break to eat, do yoga, run errands, catch up on Netflix, or design your next tattoo.
Second, lunchtime yoga is not an exclusionary activity in the sense that Polly means. Yes, it’s true that not everyone will want or be able to participate, but that is also true of a wide array of other optional workplace activities — book clubs, potlucks, happy hours, pretzel Fridays — and that’s generally understood as fine.
Employers do need to be thoughtful about inclusivity and accessibility when it comes to things like benefits, perks, and team activities. But that doesn’t mean they could never sponsor (strictly optional) lunchtime yoga classes — and in your case, you’re not the employer! You’re an individual employee who happens to do yoga on your lunch break and has offered to let others to join you if they want to. This is just not an issue.
There are circumstances where it could become an issue, mostly revolving around power dynamics. For example, if you were a manager and your whole team joined you except one person, I’d be concerned that you had inadvertently created a situation where people got extra access to you just for being yoga-inclined, possibly at the expense of the person who didn’t participate (and I’d also be concerned about whether anyone participating felt pressure to). But that’s not the situation here.
It would also be fine for you to invite others to join you for lunchtime walks, or to hit the nearby gym, or to get a drink after work. And similarly, if you were a manager, you’d need to be thoughtful about how power dynamics might play out there too, but that doesn’t take those activities off the table across the board.
As for Henry’s tone with Polly, it’s highly likely that what you heard was his annoyance with how off-base and overstepping she was! She not only tried to issue an absurdly wrong decree, but she also injected herself somewhere she had no business being (trying to reprimand his employee for something he approved, which probably pissed him off and rightly so). If you want to, you could follow up with him about it — framing it as, “I was surprised by what Polly said about lunchtime yoga and wondered what your thoughts are.” I’m quite sure he’ll tell you she was being ridiculous and you should ignore her.
I do think there’s some value in letting the two regular yoga participants who work for Polly know what she said. If Polly feels the way she appears to feel about the yoga, they deserve to know that so they can make fully-informed decisions about whether they want to continue or not. I’m also guessing this isn’t the only issue they have run into, or will run into, with Polly’s judgment.
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