to get narked at people's managers thinking 45 hours a week is outrageously long hours

[eggyface]

(sorry long, wanna avoid drip feed)

I work in white collar officey work. Classic making presentations, analysing data, sort of stuff. I remember when I was starting out in my industry, working 9.30 until 6.30 with hardly any lunch break was fairly usual. I wouldn't think that was a hard week for someone at the start of their career, learning the ropes. (A hard week might be be two or three nights until 10 or 11, or putting in 5 hours on Saturday).

We work for clients, so the ethos is that we need to service all the projects that come in, but on the other hand we are a big rather stuffy company which doesn't have much of a 'hungry' mentality for work. In our office a manager polices the diary of their team and if someone wants to nab a junior, their manager will often say they can't work on your thing because they're already working enough hours (i.e. 40).

When you're senior and working a longer week than that yourself, this is very annoying!

I know that it's important to protect people's rights and to create a culture where people don't work long hours for the sake of it. And yes, if I'm working long hours that's my problem and I need to organise my diary. But there's got to be some flex, hasn't there? I'd expect all the juniors to be keen to take on a new project even if it made them prioritise work over home life for a bit. I did that and I enjoyed the responsibility and opportunity to shine. AIBU to think that 45 hours is totally reasonable level of overtime to expect in a ft job (NB not paid, can take time off in lieu but in practice this might not happen as you'd be busy the next week)??

I love the glass balls analogy. Thank you. And thank you to all. This is fascinating, I hadn't realised what it felt like to be the OP!

I accept you are saying IABU and I'll put up and shut up! Just two things to clarify though -

it's not my work I want other people to do - it's their work. It's not about me being inefficient or asking them to do my stuff, so all the efficient time management stuff about me isn't relevant I'm afraid. Their job is to work on my projects, my job is to bring in the projects, so we all get paid. The line managers job, I think, is to finesse things so that their team gets the benefits of working hard (the recognition,the promotion, great morale) while maintaining really good communication and taking a sensitive, flexible approach to their work; but also that the company gets every single job resourced. We do have enough people, we honestly do. We are just inflexible. I think my main sadness was that the line managers only do half of this - only the bit that's about protecting the team, not the bit that's about resourcing my project. I am very senior in the company but I am not the line manager of those line managers, so my leverage is limited!

also we do reward people. I make sure they all take their TOIL, fiercely. I send herogrammes. I write long promotion recommendations. Can't do that if I never work with them in the first place, though!

right will stop justifying and go and get on with my under-resourced work

AndCake one of the interview questions I always ask is related to this sort of time management for every level of employee from the most junior upwards. How do you estimate work required to complete the job, what would you do if it turns out it's wrong and will be delayed etc. "Work a load more hours!" is very rarely the answer, and never an acceptable answer in an interview.

The reason is that if it's got to that stage where simply working more hours is going to fix it then quality of the product as much as quality will slip as well as still leaving the project at risk of not completing on those terms.

Even if working more hours does get it delivered, you still need to have set up a contingency plan for if it didn't. Regularly requiring overtime from juniors is a failure, now from the second post of the OP the failure appears to be in the initial planning of the job and scaling the teams appropriately, or in lack of flexibility/slack in the team to move more resources on to a delayed project. Or in customer management when it can't be delivered.

But expecting simple flexible working - especially if that flexibility cannot be delivered "in practice this might not happen as you'd be busy the next wee" is not much good. This does sound mostly a difference in view point between the OP and the company culture, moving to a smaller hungrier company where they'd be a better fit would likely be a good idea.

Maybe you need to give more realistic timelines to your clients, based on the hours people actually work rather than the hours you'd like them to work. I work in a similar industry I think. I've always been prepared to work longer on a exceptional basis but I see how the exception then becomes the norm and I have always tried to be pretty strict about my standard hours. I am also known for always delivering... I have also sat there listening to people overpromise which is totally unfair to the juniors who are expected to fall in line.

Some people also love the adrenaline of that last minute push to a deadline, having spent most of the day faffing around "networking" all day and can't understand why others prefer a bit of realistic planning. Well done to the other managers - I'm sure when the need is genuine and exceptional their teams rise to the occasion.

Well, this must be a first, the OP gets an almost unanimous YABU and she comes back to say to everyone, thanks and 'you know, I think you are right' instead of flouncing off or refusing to accept the answer to the question they asked.

eggyface Your job is to bring in the work at a price and time such that the team can do it presumably? If you're mis-estimating / over-selling such that they cannot do it either it's a performance issue of the individuals and just asking them to work longer isn't going to help, or your estimation is spot on and you ask for X resource, but you're given less (and this is long before any extra unpaid overtime is even considered) and then it's something you need to take up with the managers of those who provide the resource.

You say you're not the line manager, but you must have a peer who is, this needs to be taken up with them.

OP, one thing we've implementdd recently to force more flexibility and less 'my staff are full up' is real openness about how every staff member's time is allocated. Once a fortnight senior staff in the directorate meet to discuss allocation of new projects and how current projects are going, decide how much in terms of time a certain project is worth, and allocate work to individuals based on a mix of expertise and availability. If a project needs someone who is full up, something else gets dropped, delayed or reprofiled. No staff member is allowed to go over 100%, and each staff member and their line managers are responsible for making sure the work is done within the allocated time - if it's taking longer on an ongoing basis, it's brought back to the resourcing group.

It's more admin, but we're already seeing great results, particularly in terms of prioritisation. When I was brought in, the team was in 'do all wotk that comes in and damn the impact on our people' mode.

A friend of mine works for a pretty evolved place. People like working there, and they are pretty committed. They recently started an initiative where people work absolutely flat out but can leave earlier. Most office staff are doing a 6 hour day, but productivity has actually gone up and people seem more energized and happy.

Of course, it depends on the job but I guess what I'm trying to say is that in an hours-based culture, people can kind of slump into a routine of slogging away slowly and become quite demoralised, when it's actually in many cases better to work fewer hours at a higher pitch. Oh, and the other thing- to use meetings only when absolutely necessary, because they really interfere with this kind of schedule, and are (by and large) a ginormous waste of time. The culture where managers do nothing but go to meetings, and make decisions about work which is then delegated to other people to do, is such a waste of people, time, resources, and money...

When I managed a team I made sure they took lunch breaks and if someone was over stretched we'd all pitch in rather than one working 4 hours extra we'd all do half an hour extra Iyswim.
My team was happy and dedicated. When we were made redundant due to centralising our role some of our work remained in the office and it was assumed that because we didn't work long hours and took lunch breaks we didn't do much. They had a massive shock when others tried to take on the workload. I've worked in too many offices where staff are martyrs and I can't stand it. If you need to work that much overtime you clearly aren't managing your workload. Overtime should be needed only a few times a year for unusually busy periods otherwise staffing levels are wrong.

I sort of get what you mean. I work in something that sounds fairly similar - you're always on the hunt for new business/projects, and when everything comes in at once it's about spinning plates.

We have a team here that deals with resourcing teams, and they take it very seriously. But what they take seriously is that everyone's work loads are as balanced as they can be, so that no-one is working stupid hours.

That said, if we're really busy, sometimes people just have to work longer hours.

But there are times when some of the junior members of staff will object to having to take something extra on - because they've never worked anywhere else they don't appreciate how lucky they are. I've worked in companies before where presenteeism ruled, and it's a horrible way of working.

There has to be a bit of a balance between both, I think!

I think there is quite a worrying trend of people who were beasted worked hard in their junior years wanting the same for their juniors, but actually it's a pretty horrendous attitude and one of a slave driver tbh. I do however have a skewed attitude because I'm a lawyer in a large firm and I see this all the time, but wish I didn't. I would never want to leave at bang on 5 halfway through a task but I work until 7/8 as standard some weeks, and never ever before 6 even in a quiet week, and you end up thinking you can't actually leave the office an hour after your contracted time as a one off to see the doctor or something. It's not good.

Having worked in 'The City' most of my adult life, I am hugely relieved to see an office such as yours with a protective policy in place for the juniors. My experience is that they are usually exploited, expected to stay till all hours, paid nothing and driven hard. I can't count the number of unpaid, unappreciated 'face time' hours I've put in over the years which I will never get back.

YABU.

Then your issue is your resourcing process and how that's managed.

It can't just be about you saying 'who is going to work on that project' and your line managers saying 'none of my guys, they're really busy'.

There needs to be proper prioritisation and someone having a full overview of who is doing what, with flexibility. I think you need a traffic manager in your office!

A couple of thoughts, OP.

That's what freelancers are for (says the freelancer). I'm not very junior but a few times I've been pulled in to work on an agency project because they've won a big account but don't quite have the resources in place. What you need is a bank of freelancers or temps that you can call on to cover these resourcing gaps.

How do you charge? If you are charging out staff by the hour then it's much easier to keep a handle on resources and predict where people have time free. I think it's very important that managers protect their junior staff, but if your company kept better records you ought to know where people are available. If everyone really is working 40 hours per week, then lcearly you have a resourcing issue.

Eggy before I go further and you may have already answered this and I missed it. Are you in some form of Coporate New Business Development role? Are you securing new clients and your issue is transitioning the new client into a servicing team (of sorts)?

Sorry and the challenges around the transition of the client into a team (resource etc.)

Haven't you considered that some people can't afford to do unpaid overtime, because it means paying for childcare and not earning the money to cover it? this is a very good point. I used to do a lot of unpaid ot in an old job as we had a factory to keep full and if I just went home without doing my side of it then we'd be throwing money away overnight with nothing running, people in my role we just expected to stay till things were done, unpaid with no toil either. This was fine with no dcs, but once I had dc I was often actually paying to be working the ot (dh's job meant he couldn't always pick up). "luckily" we could afford it, but it sure builds up a lot of resentment. I moved roles in the end to one with no ot required.

I have always found working as little as possible for as much money as possible is the way to go. I find people who have nothing but work in their lives extremely boring.

I think working 40 hours a week is too bloody long! let alone any more than that!
I suppose if I had ever been ambitious I would have joined in with those who were climbing ladders but I just think everyone makes it harder for everyone else when they are prepared to work over 40 hours.
Eventually it will be the norm and totally expected to work 12 hours a day if people keep agreeing to doing this.
Jeez, we are going backwards to the Victorian age.

Yabvvvu

When I was a single mother working full time I could only work the nursery hours 8-6 minus my commenting time.

When I read your OP I hear 'single mums shouldn't work/have careers.' Thanks. I should have just sat around on benefits getting vilified then should I have?

The UK's ridiculous long working hours culture is one of the reasons we have shocking gender inequality and a huge gender pay gap.

I must be pretty much the only person who thinks the OP is NBU then

OP, I totally get where you're coming from. I suspect many people replying on this thread don't have experience of the kind of working environment you're operating within.

However, its definitely a good thing that someone's paying attention to the number of hours juniors are doing. I would have given a lot for that kind of support early in my career. Still, 40 hours is far from excessive, so a balance must be struck.

And given the way in which project are costed, it's totally inefficient for you to be doing tasks that are more appropriate for a junior to do. You picking up the slack is not the answer. Does your firm need more junior resource? Why don't you raise this as a concern?

For what its worth, I was always happy to put in the extra time - so long as I was learning new skills and building a case for my next promotion. That's what motivates people.

I am from that sort of environment Laurie, I said upthread that I worked in finance and 60 hour weeks were the norm. I still don't think other people should feel forced into doing it though.

everyone makes it harder for everyone else when they are prepared to work over 40 hours.

this

Just because it was the that way when you started doesn't mean it's right.
When I first started work our Standard week was 54 hours and with on call work that could be doubled, there was the famous week where I worked 135 hours. This was the final straw in a extended period and resulting in me spending 5 days on intravenous antibiotics as I had failed to realise I had a urinary tract infection that became pyelonephritis.
Now I am the boss I am working to change this, our standard week is now 36 hours we still do on call which can still double it, so there are still some weeks where you can work 70 hours.
My endeavour as the boss is to improve the work life balance for everyone whilst still offering our clients the rights service.

I get it but I think we are getting more and more normalised to working ALL THE FUCKING TIME

SO, YABU

Like you I easily do a 45-50 hour week. And I am sick and tired of it

its all bullshit, work your hours, be more productive and stop this presenteeism malarkey

and YABU to expect juniors paid alot less than you to do unpaid overtime