Working Outside of Contracted Hours

[FredAstairesUnderwear]

I need opinions on this as on discussion with my other colleagues it seems we are all divided.
I work in a retail banking industry part time for example 20 hours a week, my time is salary paid but I have contracted hours so say 9-5 Monday with 1 hour unpaid lunch break. If I work more hours than my contracted hours, for an example an extra day in the week 11-3 so 4 hours, I would be paid for this. On full days I am paid from 9-5 which are the opening hours, however I am required to arrive in enough time to get the money out the safe, tills on, general pre-opening prep. This all needs to be completed before 9am and takes a minimum of 15 minutes to do. Similar on an evening, the door is locked at 5pm we are not allowed to complete closing procedures until this has happened so usually don't leave until 5.15pm. This is an extra 30 minutes a day which isn't a lot but after doing this for 3 years multiple times a week I have come to realise I have in theory worked a lot of time that I haven't been paid for. My other colleagues are of the opinion that it's not fair but it's just what we have to do, I am happy to do this but I just think we should be paid for it. AIBU?
I should add that this time is non-negotiable, I can't just rock up at 8.58 and leave at 5.01.
I am completely prepared to be told I am being naive or unreasonable also.

Unpaid overtime is an expectation in many jobs. I don't think it's fair, but it may take a lot to overhaul the system.

If you (or a colleague) are low paid you may be able to challenge this via minimum wage legislation, your salary should be enough to cover all of the hours you have to work at minimum rates

Many contracts talk about 'time to reasonably complete responsibilities' as opposed to allowing everyone to drop whatever they're doing at 5:01 or to start billing their company for every minute of overtime.

It's about give and take. YABU.

YANBU

I used to work in retail, 16hr contract, but there was usually overtime. If you were working until store closing you had to stay and cash up. Could be 10mins, could be longer if there was an imbalance or a lot of lose change. One memorable occasion I was stuck there for 45 minutes because there was an imbalance, no supervisor on the department, the supervisor who should have been coming over forgot to, the supervisor I went to find and who said they'd come over when they'd finished their till forgot. Did anybody care? No. Did I get the time back, plus the 20 minutes extra I'd also done that week through cashing up? No.

Full time staff at least got an extra 15 minutes per week that was supposed to cover cashing up.

Not as bad as some other shops though where staff were all on 4hr contracts even though they worked full-time and if they refused to stay for an hour or more after closing, unpaid, to tidy up they'd only be doing their 4hrs.

sharksDen

It's about give and take. YABU.

And when your employer abuses that as in my example above?

I think the response you go for depends on the give and take you get.

If you are unavoidably late one day, do they mither you about it; or is it ok?
If you need to take a longer lunch break/dentist/whatever are they accommodating?
Do they handle holiday requests well and fairly>
How do they treat you day to day?

It's a two-way street. I am allowed an extraordinary amount of flexibility in my job, and in return I am very happy and willing to do the extra when it is needed. There have been mutterings of cracking down (my boss dead against), but if that's what they want, then there will be consequences as I will suddenly find that my flexibility will vanish, for example.

Still unreasonable.

The 45 minutes was a mistake. We all make them.

The 10 minutes to cash up was necessary. You can't pull the tills out before the shop closes and with the amount of theft, you need to know if the till balances before staff leave.

What were you free to do if you didn't like the job?

If it's about give and take them why is the employee doing all the giving and the employer doing all the taking?

We have an appalling culture in this country of working late every day being the norm and expected by many managers.

Why on earth should people work for free in any role? If you're there, you should be paid. If you are expected to work fifty-hour weeks then it should be reflected in the contract and salary and made very clear at interview. Any free work is just lining the pockets of the business owners. If they can't pay their employees for the hours they work then the business is unsustainable.

Is there a staff organisation or union you can approach?

RBS per chance?

We were talking about this quite recently . My friends refuse to open the safe until 9am, then set up their tills. Have you been to the union?

sharksDen
Still unreasonable.

I was referring to the being expected to stay an hour unpaid at the end of every day.

As for the 'mistake' with the 45 minutes, two supervisors made the same mistake, leaving me stuck there. Of course tills have to be cashed up, and if they don't balance we have to try and figure out why, but the full time staff at least got paid a token amount for the cashing up time, why should I do over an hour of work extra and not be either paid for it or get it back as TOIL?

And yes, I did what you imply and quit the crappy job - but I was lucky, I was in a position financially that when it got to the point that the job was seriously impacting on my mental health I could tell them where to stick it.

The point is there was no give and take - it was all take and staff were expected to be flexible to the point of breaking and to the detriment of their own health. Off the top of my head - two nine hour shifts back-to-back with no break inbetween, and generally ignoring the rules around rest periods and breaks? Refusing staff time off for hospital appointments when cancer was suspected (and in that case he had actually already cancelled one appointment for them)? 'Losing' the key to the first aid room? Trying to make someone work on after they've tripped over damaged flooring and sustained a head injury? Phoning a staff member who was in hospital and persuading them to come in?

Why should I go out of my way to do anything extra for an employer who treats their staff in that way?

It's completely wrong but, sadly, has been this way for decades.

And unfortunately it would take a lot to overhaul it. Pisses me off no end and it's a massive part of why I left retail management. The expectations are huge. I regularly worked 50 hours plus per week whilst being paid for 37. Finally gave my head a wobble and jacked it in.

This is similar to my working environment. Fortunately in my current place of work we are given time to set up and close down.
In my previous place we were expected to be in 15 mins at start and end of day, unpaid. Acas said that the only amount of time you need to be in work before your paid start time is the time it takes you to take off a jacket etc. You are under no obligation to go in early unpaid.
Unfortunately in the industry I work in it is the norm but I am lucky to have a great boss at the moment

Hi, I used to work in retail banking many years ago and it was the same then. We are going back to the days of 9.30-3.30 opening and each branch had about 30+ staff doing all the back office roles as well, including balancing the tills every day. My contracted hours were 9-5 but I was always in by 8.30 and sometimes worked til 6 depending on what role I was doing that week. If the tills didn't balance then it was all hands on deck until you could find it. No overtime was paid. I then went into investment banking and no overtime paid there either and it was expected that if there was work to be done that couldn't wait then you would stay to do it.

I understand that's it's give and take, but I just don't believe the giving I'm having to do is fair. An old manager did stipulate at one point we needed to be there by 8.35 (again no extra pay) fortunately they have now moved on. My daughter has just started school, if I could turn up at 8.55 to start work at 9 I wouldn't have to be sending her to and paying for a before school club. If the time I needed to be in for was paid I wouldn't even mind because it would help towards the costs of the club before school but as it's not it's just really bothering me!
I'm going to speak to acas I think. Not RBS Darcey but a similar bank.

I'm a manager and my boss expects unpaid overtime from my team members. Told him to forget about it. I dont believe in quantity over quality especially in my line of work where if you're tired and make mistakes we have to spend a lot of time fixing it. I'd rather have people work as per contracted hours and if they want to do overtime it should be their choice. And they should get paid for it.

Shakey15000 just being nosy out of interest, what line of work did you go into? I'm in retail management and hate it but I've no idea what else I could do.

As far as working extra hours goes, it's part and parcel of retail.

We have an appalling culture in this country of working late every day being the norm and expected by many managers.

Exactly this. My Area Manager actually ENCOURAGES staff to not take lunch breaks so we can get more work done

I'm a manager and my boss expects unpaid overtime from my team members.

Every manager I know does this and you're made to feel as though your not supporting the company if you don't.

If I could be honest about what goes on in my company you wouldn't believe it.

I would love to know what the financial value of unpaid overtime is for the whole country.... I bet it would be eyewatering.

No one, in any Industry should be expected to work even a second without pay... the flexibility and give and take that people mentioned is very rarely stacked in favour of the employee, "work half hour over every shift and I won't mind if you're 20 minuyes late every 6 months" is not give and take at all. Sadly it seems this is the way of the world these days.

Putthebunny It was funny really, at the time I was an AMM (Assistant Manager Merchandise) for TK Maxx dah sarf. I was on the underground one day and saw an advert for Customer Service bods (in the days of checking tickets on the barriers. In a rash moment I applied, even though it was a 3k pay drop. But I was truly burnt out. The day I handed my keys in was so liberating! Worked on the underground for 7 years, working my way up to supervisor. Left and relocated when pg with DS, couple of years as SAHM then into admin based roles. Good luck breaking free!

Certainly in teaching, unpaid overtime is the norm and expected. We are paid for 195 day's work, spread over 12 months. The work we are paid for is specifically teaching hours (usually 5 lessons an hour long a day). We are not paid for duties, registrations, after school club, phone calls and inevitable meetings after school, parents' evenings, open days, marking, prep etc- but, we understand this is part of the job. It is not uncommon to see staff in school from 7-7.30 in the morning (despite pay not starting until start of period 1, which is 9.15 in my school. Registration is 8.45) Many staff in my school are in until 6 every day too, then work from home on a night. Teachers generally don't mind doing this at all, but one of the reasons strikes happen, is that this overtime is often double the contracted hours and the workload never stops. And before anyone points out the generous holiday entitlement- we do not receive holiday pay at all.

It's the same in any retail job even retail banking. Why not try to get out of retail? Most bog standard office jobs will let you do 9-5 or as close to it as possible.

I work in retail and trade finance in compliance full time mon to Fri 9-5 and do at least 8-10 hours unpaid overtime per week which I recently worked out is an extra 2-3 months per year 😨

Sorry - retail banking but back office in compliance

I work in an office environment where it's quite common. Nobody arrives at 8.59 to start work at 9.00 on the dot. But we genuinely have a 'give and take' culture. if you have a doctors appointment, need to pick kids up early, get caught in traffic nobody minds.

What would happen if you put your coat on and walked out At 5pm?

Was it Sports Direct that were pulled up on doing something similar, the extra 15 minutes at beginning and end of shift put workers under minimum wage.