work hours

[WetLettuce123]

Hi all. I'm a freelance contractor in the engineering My current contract is for six months and I'm one month into it. I have four bosses all at the same level although I only have regular contact with two and one of them, "F" is leaving in a month. Let's call the other one "E".

For the last few weeks myself and my five contemporaries have been working 945am to 630pm. Sometimes longer. We usually do much longer hours but things will get much busier in a few weeks and we've been told by F to do these hours. E is supposed to be directly managing us but hasn't given any direction or feedback for two weeks.

I left work at 5.45 today. People generally leave earlier on a Friday and F had left at 4 and told us to go when we wanted to as things will be busier soon.

At 1810 we got a group message from E asking where we all are and questioning our work. AIBU to think this should have been flagged before close of play on a Friday? It puts me on edge now there's an email chain about it.

As E is your manager, Ywbu to leave early without their knowledge.

Can you include F in the reply and say that F gave the go ahead?

You're freelance? As in self-employed?

If that is the case you don't have a "boss" and you cannot legally be directed to work specific hours.

Contracted to companies so not fully freelance. F told us we could leave at that time and usually E leaves earlier I think. This is the first time E has asked to speak to us, but yes I think probably a better culture would be popping in and saying goodbye to E each day. I did try and do this twice in the first week but he had already left, although now I'm regretting not doing this as making any kind of bad impression with people in this industry is obviously damaging and likely now I'll be paranoid all weekend about it!

I believe that one of the markers of self-employment that HMRC acknowledge is the ability to complete a contracted task during hours of your own choosing, so I'm not sure whether they can complain bout you leaving at a time of your choosing. Although if the work that needed to be completed was not done within the designated schedule then they would have cause to complain about that.

What does your contract say about your working hours?

Generally they specify the standard number of hours to be worked over a week, eg 40 hours.

Had you worked your basic hours this week - don't guy gave a time sheet to complete?

There'll be weeks when we do 70+ hours so we are just expected to manage our own but had been told that this time was more relaxed (by one boss not the other).

Sounds like they are exercising Supervision, direction and control www.contractoruk.com/successful_contracting/supervision_direction_or_control_need_know.html

You can't really be 'Contracted to companies so not fully freelance.' - you might need to clarify our position.

Are you being paid a salary or a fee?

My husband is a contractor, though not in the same industry. He contracts to complete a project to a defined standard by a specific deadline - not to work specific hours.

Refer E to F. At least there are 4(5?) of you who can assert to what F said!