AIBU to expect my staff to work overtime or more than just 9-5

[TeeterTotter]

I manage a large team of 20 staff and I have two members of my team who refuse to do anything beyond the core hours in their contract. In at a set time, out the door right on the dot like clockwork.

If these staff members were junior I wouldn't expect more of them but they are both on a managerial salary of £41-£44k per year --I think at this level there is a general expectation that you're generally more engaged and committed and that you'll work at home or stay late when needed. I also feel times have changed and in these dicey financial times people are giving more to their jobs than ever. In a perfect world no one would have extra work or overtime, but that's just not the way things are in 2012!

One of the staff members is a mom to 2 kids and she says it is impossible for her to stay late (due to childcare commitments) or to do work on weekends (she's too busy with the kids); the other is a single guy who has no appetite to do more than he's contracted to do.

I find this situation very irksome, especially because I have two kids but do a lot of late nights and work from home, which I think is expected at my level.

DP thinks I need to stop imposing my protestant work ethic on everyone I work with, but I feel these staff members aren't pulling their weight. I'm not a slavedriver but I expect more. Are I reasonable or are my views skewed? I would really welcome the opinion of others.

Yes that's Crap. Agree about give nd take

I should add that my manager rarely stayed late, she usually left between 5 and 6, and turned up a quarter to ten. "Because of her train". (She did not have children) It was quite rare that she was in at 9, and of course she had to "catch me" the one morning I was late.... Infuriating.

I was really just having a whinge about high-paid staff who show no commitment.

I do despair sometimes. Here we all are, grown women who are desperate that our daughters are not held back in their careers. Yet we are at the same time harking back to the very attitudes that kept women out of senior positions for years and years and years.

'Equality' is long long dead. This is the age of diversity. This is the age where the business leaders ask the following questions 1) Does this person give me a good quality of output? 2) Is this worth the money I pay them? 3) What is needed from my side to keep this person loyal and committed? If the answer is 'a 9 to 5' life, then you bend over backwards to give them that. If the answer is 'more responsibility' you try to give them that, if the answer is 'promotion' you try to give them that. Sometimes if the person is really good you try to give them all three things. Yes, really. A 9-5 life with - OMG -career progression too.

Equating the willingness(ability) to work overtime with the level of commitment is lazy and archaic and really poor mgmt behaviour. I could go on and on about the organisational behaviours at play here and the psychological contracts being breached, but I would advise instead that the OP step back and seriously question her approach to management, because it really is a bit out of date. If there really is no ability to flex the staff of 20 enough to accommodate different people's needs, then the mgmt have hired the wrong team or are organising the team poorly. The OP needs to spend more time understanding the drivers of each of her staff and responding to them (or at least responding to the drivers of those staff who she thinks produce good work)

IMVHO.

This thread reminds me why I will only ever work for myself.

See, I told you your views were outdated, op.

Thanks goodness for Squiffy coming along to explain and illuminate.

I will say, I'm good at my job, I'm a manager, I work 9-5 (then take work home when it's busy as I have young kids) and certainly don't care what hours my team work as long as they do the job.

I'm always suspicious of ones who work long hours yet come up with a constant stream of excuses as to why something isn't done.

'it's not always easy to hire more staff' - the biggest reason that both DH and Ileft our last jobs was that management refused to hire new staff. The good ones will leave as they'll find new work easily, leaving the mediocre behind, and then even more of a reason you need new staff! It's a short-sighted strategy.

Can I work for you Squiffy?

I'm in that salary range, I love my job and I'm committed to it.

But I'm not a doormat and, as someone else said before, I'm paid for my expertise, not for my presence.

I do work overtime, on occasion, when there's a crisis to sort out or a one-off thing on top of our normal workload. Everyone stays later on those days, bosses and underlings alike, until the work is done. I believe that is normal and could be expected of staff, whatever their salary and level of responsibility.

But there is a difference between pulling your weight when there's an unexpected problem to solve, and being required to do more than you get paid for, on a regular basis and for no good reason. The former is commitment, the latter is poor time management.

I also take all my holidays, and on slow days I post on the internet. So does my boss. We get the work done, and get it done well, that's what matters.

Completely crazy Quintessential. I would have felt equally resentful about that horror of a job.

I've worked in a few different work places. Management-level teachers are expected to work when needed. They don't keep 'office-hours' as such. I was told this sort of agreement was written into the contract though. THis flexibility partly justifies their superior salary (40k max ime). I think this was fair as all parties knew what they were getting themselves into.

The craziest hours I've seen worked have been by researchers thus proving that we work hardest under our own self-imposed slave drives.

THe saddest case of overtime that I can recall was in a French run office. THe boss rarely stayed later than 5pm and frequently came in after 9.30. His best worker on 20k (hardly managment salary!) would work after hours and weekends routinely. It was an accountancy office where work load would predictably peak and trough through the year. I very much felt the boss was a weak manager in that he should be planning ahead for these very predictable peak times so that the work load of the whole office was not falling almost entirely on the shoulders of his one, very amenable, employee. I felt very sorry for her. I felt the boss was taking advantage of her good nature (would never say no and lived in fear of losing her job).

I find it hard to understand why employers should work harder in an economic downturn. IME these things always work one way. So when the economy starts improving we should be allowed to work less - this never happens!!!! IMO all an excuse to turn the ratchet. But that's only my opinion. I've never worked as a manager.

Depends on the job. I employ people in the farming industry. Unless joe public wants to pay a lot more for their eggs and bread harvest workers will be expected to do 18 hr days and livestock workers who live on site to be on call at 3am. Regular hours are 7 - 4 but the job necessitates sometimes working outside
This.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Of course, there's nothing I would love more than to spend hours and hours every week working for you for free instead of spending that time in things like walking my dog, reading a book, make love with my partner, have a good time with friends or having fun doing some interesting activity. Oh, the irony.

Why not the other way around OP? Why don't you pay every single one of your employees an extra 3 hours salary every week just because? It is the same principle. You would be giving your money away for nothing. Equally, what you want is for them to work for you for nothing.

Get a life. Happy people have one.

+there's a mini crisis, and it's all hands to the pumps for a few days?+

The occasional mini crisis happens everywhere, and it's not unreasonable to expect people to do a bit more when that happens. But that has to be the exception, not the norm.

And if you are a manager in charge of people, then I believe it's your duty to lead by example and not be the first one to bugger off at 5 whilst expecting your underlings to burn the midnight oil. I'm happy to stay later occasionally to help with a crisis, but then I expect my boss to do the same.

Well said squiffy!

I think the OP is mixing up two issues: asking people to work more hours, and compensating them for doing it.

For example, one thing she expects is to be able to ask someone to do a report over the weekend. So, presumably at the last minute, someone is being asked to give up, what, 50% of their free time at the weekend? That's not necessarily so bad, if they are being compensated in some way. But to expect them to do it out of 'commitment' or loyalty? My arse.

I get that crises happen but there are loads of ways to manage this situation that don't involve merely expecting people to work for free.

Yes agree about mini crises.

however in my office they seem to last for three months which is a fecking nightmare and rewarded by senior management by a measly thank you and one free breakfast. When actually they should give people time off when there's almost no work to do over the quiet period

The problem with the 'crisis' justification is that it can be a bit subjective.

One manager's 'crisis' is another manager's 'significant problem' that can be fixed on Monday morning. One manager might claim certain crises to be unforeseeable, and yet another manager with more experience might anticipate such events and have contingency plans in place.

And in any event, the fact that it's a crisis doesn't mean you should neglect the sacrifice your employees have made. Especially if you want people to give up their weekends, it's only fair to offer something in exchange.

An occasional mini crisis is one thing. Routinely expecting people to drop plans and work extra hours for free at short notice day in day out is something else.

I have a severely disabled teen. I can't just magic out childcare for him out of thin air so can never work a last minute crisis, and absolutely would not be able to cope with a weak or bullying boss who expected me to be available on their terms. I could extend hours temporarily with enough warning to arrange carers, but otherwise no.

This is why I work for myself. I was working at 11pm last night, but was also able to down tools for a few hours in the early evening to deal with the kids. Whenever I've worked and it whatever role I've been happy to do extra. But I would not tolerate poor management or bosses who expected a pound of flesh and gave nothing in return. I have seen close friends and family in those situations and it's and awful, miserable and depressing place to be.

Are you so sure they are doing the minimum?

I've worked on a project where without being asked we'd all seen the looming deadline and put extra time in and we were on track. Management ignored this and suddenly decreed 12 hour days - everytime we met the creteria they'd suddenly change the goal posts. End of month productivity was on the floor,moral rock bottom and good will pretty much absent.

Same company saw a collegue get slated by visiting collegue as he'd leave on time. She wasn't seeing him come in at 6.am after a good night sleep and implementing solutions in quiet office - she just got mad he refused to stop after hours as she did.

I was also managed by tired mangers there. I'd get rude unprofessional e-mails and then get told that I shouldn't get upset as they'd been sent at midnight .

My DH worked on farms for eight years before tiring of the liberal attitude to working hours freerangelady. He had the same experience as I did when I worked in a restaurant at uni. Every night at the end of the shift there was a huge pile of dishes to be cleaned. Had to be done for the following morning. Every evening was a 'crisis'. I always refused as it was a managment issue. If more hours were needed in the working day, they needed to pay for them. If not, the restaurant needed to be better organised.

I do believe there is a middle road. THe key thing to me is: is the employee managment grade or not? If s/he is then I think it not unreasonable to expect to do some routine out-of-hours work. In this respect, I very much think OP is NBU in her expectations. If the employee is not management, I think it must be up to the employer to plan for out-of-hours work - the exceptional unexpected crises excepted of course.

Cassandra, I think your story illustrates the point on why many non-managment employees refuse OOH work point blank. If you put in the extra mile to meet a deadline, the managment come to expect this as the new norm.

As a teacher, some teachers woud walk out mid-meetings once it read 5pm on the clock because those were the designated hours. Although I hated it in one respect, in another I was quite thankful that at least some people were making a stand i.e. saying 'this is the time the meeting should have ended'.

I can't read 12 pages of posts but YABVU.

I don't believe in presenteeism. Or unpaid overtime.