If people just worked their contracted hours, how many hours would be lost in your country?

[Whathappenedtothedietcokebreakman]

Just thinking how many unpaid hours so many people work and how this is a business model relied upon in so many organisations. Some contracts will state things like ‘may be required to work additional hours from time to time’, when the reality is ‘may be allowed to work contracted hours from time to time’. How many unpaid hours do you think are done a year in your country? I’m only talking about employment, not unpaid carers etc.

I’ve worked out at a minimum I work 4.7 weeks more than my contracted hours a year. In reality it’s probably much more than that!

I used to do this when I was younger but I don’t any more. I consider my employment as me selling my skills and time to my employer. If they want more of it they pay for it 😀

Depends, are you also deducting the hours people are paid for but don't spend working?

Hours would be gained in my company. I insist my team takes breaks and goes home on time. The lazy git who slacks off loses me hours every week. Everyone else is wonderful!

Yes, surely hours would be gained? Most people aren’t in jobs where they routinely have to go over and above. And those who are, are increasingly exercising their right not to, either through doing the bare minimum to get the job done, or doing as little as they can get away with (“quiet quitting”). More and more people are waking up to the fact that their employer gives not one fuck about them and are adjusting their attitude to work accordingly.

@Crushed23 indeed. Of course many do extra too. Teachers being a classic example but by no means the only.
But I reckon - and this is a total guess - that most office workers do fewer hours than they're paid for. No judgment at all from me there! Do the work you're given and get the paycheque!
But from my experience of many years in a senior-ish admin role then moving to self employment where I have to actively bill and particularise each hour, I would say sitting at my desk 8h equates to about 5h actual work. When I was an employee, maybe the same or less!

This is so variable according to the work being done. If you're in work that requires constant levels of staffing e.g. care, employers will often have to rely on people picking up extra hours to ensure cover. If you're in work where you just have to get the stuff done, then hours worked is immaterial. I am an incredibly fast worker so don't actually need to do as many hours as many of my colleagues to get the same amount of work done. I never do extra hours in the work I do now because I have boundaries and am efficient and no one will die if staffing isn't covered 24/7.

What were you doing the other 3 hours and how did your bosses not see how idle you were? I compress my hours mainly as my commute is 2 hours return journey so I only take a 20 min lunch and just keep going. I rarely have time to do anything BUT work, do not have coffee and/or smoke breaks and still end up with taking work home or on the days working from home working the 2 hour commute instead at my home office desk. I am sure some people get away with doing naff all but certainly not the norm in my industry and that is from admin up to management roles.

What were you doing the other 3 hours and how did your bosses not see how idle you were? I compress my hours mainly as my commute is 2 hours return journey so I only take a 20 min lunch and just keep going. I rarely have time to do anything BUT work, do not have coffee and/or smoke breaks and still end up with taking work home or on the days working from home working the 2 hour commute instead at my home office desk. I am sure some people get away with doing naff all but certainly not the norm in my industry and that is from admin up to management roles.

Just on above also I worked that many hours last year and a few other things happened that it hit me my employers do not give a fuck about me so I started January with a clean slate. I have put in for my holidays already for the full year as last year I had to work around other people, I am working my paid hours only in the office and no working from home for at least this month to show them the extra I do when I work from home and I leave the laptop and all work files on my desk when I clock out. I have already been asked to where xyz is and I have repeated that as yet I have not had time to get to it so they realise how much extra and unpaid work I put in. Not sure what I hope to gain for it maybe just recognition for the extra hours would be something but I am doing it anyway.

Where we live work is seen very differently, if I had stayed late at my last job (temporarily unemployed) my boss would have been concerned, presenteism is not a thing herr and the work life balanced is very much encouraged and the norm. It took a lot of getting used to, even things like medical appointments, I don’t need to tell anyone or ask, you just get up and leave.

If I factored in the fact contractually travel to and from “site” ie not my office is classed as works time and meetings don’t often stop for lunch I quite often work an additional 6-8 hours per week

In my country its common for collective agreements to state that working more than your contracted hours must be compensated with overtime pay or toil so there's probably less extra hours worked overall but I expect certain professions have a lot of extra work e.g. teachers and healthcare (I went to the doctors last week and the doctor and a nurse were working an hour and a half after closing taking care of me) but hopefully they are properly compensated for it

An hour for lunch, faffing, chatting to colleagues, reading the news maybe for 15 mins, responding to texts, trying to get the printer to work, walking to and from little kitchen and making coffee, drinking the coffee, going to the toilet, walking to and from meetings, reading emails which weren't particularly pertinent to any task I was on but were sent to everyone in the company.

Working hard and going above and beyond in this country is often punished with more work to make up for the slackers. And there is a real divide, with a handful of people often carrying the majority of the work. I used to be one of them, but I am slowly realising it does me no favours.

So over the past year, I made up my mind to consciously do less. I didn't work all hours God sent me. I only took on extra work that would improve my chances of promotion (such as a professional course paid for by my employer). I minuted my hours worked and compared them to the hours I had been given and asked to be released from some of my day to day duties to get the extra bit I'd been directed to done.

I took my sick days (within reason) when the benefit of being present at work was outweighed by the sinking feeling in my gut at the realisation that my work being presented to large audiences when I wasn't at my best was doing more damage in the long run.

I reused older work to supplement my current work without checking whether it was an ideal fit, but knowing it would do the job well enough. I put everything I asked others to do in writing, sent one reminder and let my boss deal with those who didn't complete it.

Some tasks which had little benefit compared to the work they took got quietly dropped altogether.

And my employer? If they've noticed, they haven't mentioned it. If they haven't, then what was the point all along. They didn't thank me for the extra work done; they simply piled more on top, because Haruka would get it done. Any active mention of me struggling would get ignored.
My employer still takes the piss with what they want vs what they pay, or the time they give us to complete our work. But now I don't put as much in.

I'm better off for it. I resent my job less, resent other people less, and have stopped giving too much of a toss about the outcome, knowing I'm still performing better than many others in my position. I invest more time in my wellbeing, my relationship and my family. Maybe I'm getting old. But I will no longer allow my mental health and my relationships to suffer for an employer who'd replace me in a heartbeat when I'm gone.