to think no one should be regularly working beyond their paid and contracted hours

[Lydiaatthebarre]

I was talking to a neighbour yesterday who said she was exhausted because she rarely gets home from work before 8.30 - 9.00 in the evening. Apparently her contracted hours are 9am - 6pm but 'nobody only works their paid hours, we all end up staying on for an extra hour or two".

AIBU to think that this increasing practise of expecting employees to give up hours of their time, free of charge, is totally wrong and a really backward step?

I'm not talking about a bit of give and take now and again, but a regular practise that seems to exist in many workplaces.

We have had some huge re-structures in the last few years, hundreds and hundreds of people who worked long hours in 'important' roles are now gone. And I wonder what they think? Was it worth it, all that family time they missed, the long commutes, the stress for a company that turfed them out on their ear with a months notice and a months pay and not much else to show for it? I take them as a warning. My current line manager has put loads of pressure on me to go full time - and I just won't. Wants me to check email when on holiday - that's another no. I could be laid off in 6 months, he could be gone in 6 months. And in the meantime my kids bloom and grow - I'm not missing any more time with them than I have to.

I wish it could be made illegal for people at job interviews to say that working hours are 9-5 you will be expected to work longer than that unpaid on a regular basis ... that's a bad sign as far as I'm concerned. And it really makes me cross when workplaces essentially tell people that although they have a lunch hour they are expected to take less than that (has happened to DH). it's presumably not legal if it's in a contract, but not many people would bother to fight that battle

I always hear warning bells if someone starts talking about how they've built up loads of flexi time that they just can't take, or haven't used up their full holiday allowance for the last three years. In my experience these people are no more productive than anyone else, but often use work to compensate for a lack of any meaningful or interesting life outside of work.

Colleagues like that can be very difficult to work with; deliberately dragging out jobs, or becoming very territorial about their work and refusing to pass on knowledge and skills.

I think it really depends on the job TBH.

I'm a nursing instructor and when I teach clinical practicum I frequently work "outside" hours. We have assignments to mark and notes to write and it's not really possible to do that during clinical because we're on the floor supervising the students.

Fortunately my work is very understanding of that and they try to balance the work assignments so that no one's doing back-to-back clinical (we do a max of 8 weeks at a stretch, no more). They also give us extra vacation to compensate - including bank holidays, Christmas, and Reading Week we get a total of 3 months' paid vacation a year.

Looking at this thread you have to wonder how we've ended up with a Tory government and a society that thinks 'Union' is a dirty word...

The shrinking of the public sector is a real issue....on top of the frequent restructurings, funding cuts and redundancies, there's the back door shrinking of teams by simply not replacing leavers.

People are working long hours because they are now responsible for the work previously carried out by two or more people.

@dameofdilemma you can't pin this one on just the Tories. This isn't something new and has been an issue for at least 20 years.

Lydia - your comment a couple of osts above about those colleagues being hard to work with - spot on. That is my experience too. They are totally invested in work to the expense of everything else and consider you a slacker if you dont share the same mindset.

I have worked with a lot of very hardworking and concientious people who were unceremoniously dumped in a restructure a few years back. Their shock was palpable. You are a number, a cog in the machine. Unless you own your own business there is no point in putting all your eggs in the wirk basket.

SillySally - employment legislation has become more employer friendly under the current government. That's not going to help employees trying to claim unfair dismissal when they're fired for not routinely doing unpaid overtime.

And the Tories aren't exactly known for being Union friendly. One of the key ways conditions for employees improve is through Unions pushing for changes.

When I worked in retail & our recruitment was frozen or headcounts slashed, we had to rely on people wanting overtime & being willing to do it. A couple of the girls got so leant on that I used to remind them they had a right to turn down overtime & were allowed a life.

I loathe any imposition on my free time, although I was that person with unused holiday. I used to work with another manager who'd book off lots of regular weekends. So I'd go book a proper holiday, and she'd have booked the weekend in the middle and obviously I couldn't make her relinquish days. I stopped bothering. The low point was being unable to go to my cousins wedding because it was in her birthday week and she ALWAYS has ten days off for it.

The flipside was that I also refused to cover her short notice, such as when I refused to come & relieve Sneaky Bitch when she'd knowingly gone in whilst still in the grip of Norovirus. When I was eventually signed off with stress I had a phased return to work & didn't go back full time for a month but got paid by using all the holiday I'd not taken due to Sneaky Bitch. Never again!

Just say NO

But in some companies if you say no you are labelled as 'not a team player' and a 'jobsworth' and are then overlooked when it comes time for promotions or a juicy project.

When I worked in recruitment the standard hours were 8:30-6:30 and it was expected that you would arrive early and leave late. If you left on time every day you were thought of as lacking commitment.

I wouldn’t work anywhere that demanded unpaid overtime! Most of my jobs have had flexi time. Where I work now, we all leave on time and overtime is actually paid!

I have no career ambitions. My job is just that - it’s not a career. However much unpaid overtime you do, companies will still get rid of you if needed.

My mum retired from her last job - she was a manager in a huge financial company. She left early on her last day and her (nasty) boss debited two hours of payment from her final salary. My mum was doing 50 hour weeks and being paid for 38 hours.

I have zero loyalty to any organisation.

Just say NO

It's not so simple as that though.

I have worked in several jobs where eyebrows are raised at anyone leaving at 5.30.

Working only to contracted hours is seen an not being committed in many areas of work.

Workers that do so will miss out on promotions or pay rises, will be the first out of the door when it comes to redunancies.

OH's job is exactly the same, and the past few jobs he has had too.

His contracted hours are 9.00 till 5.30.
His actual hours are 8.15 till 6.30.

Not to do this in his working environment would be job suicide.

I’m intrigued to see what happens as more and more jobs get automated. Especially office jobs.

I think a lot of people are wrapped up in their jobs and it defines them. Some people seem to take pride in working 80 hour weeks and telling everyone.

If a company goes bust, your zillions of hours of working for free count for nothing. If they need to, any company will make you redundant no matter how “loyal” you might be.

That's dreadful @Polarbearflavour I bet she was so angry

@AngeloMysterioso that's why I wouldn't ever work in an agency again, dreadful working environments in my experience. In house all the way!

I work in Germany, professional role - STEM PhD - in large tech organisation, standard working week 35 hours, great flexitime

Working outside contacted hours would be regarded in most German firms as something having gone wrong
That's except for occasional project emergencies, in which case those people would always get pay or time off in lieu

If someone kept doing this, their manager would review whether they needed more training or whether their workload was too high

Uk politicians and business keep quoting statistics that German workers are 20% more productive on average than British workers.
So, presenteeism doesn't actually help business
Maybe because over-tired workers are less efficient

DP is in the military and occasionally does 16 hour days - no overtime. But then he finishes at noon on Fridays and somehow gets 8 weeks off a year on leave in his current job so it’s swings and roundabouts. Of course it’s a completely different story when posted away on deployment!

But for normal office/retail type jobs there shouldn’t be any need for it.

My dad was a banker in the 80s & it was very normal for him to leave at 5/6am & get home at 10pm. Some of his colleagues didn’t even go home!

After working for years in the private sector & having to do lots of unpaid overtime (not due to inefficiency but too much work) I now have a job in the public sector, it’s amazing. Flexi time & if I do have to do work outside my hours I can paid time & 1/2.

Flexible working nowadays is a better draw than high pay.

@SinglePringle I wonder whether you and I work in the same industry.

Like SinglePringle, we opt out of the Working Hours Directive and have 'hours as required' in our contracts. It would be unusual for me not to work a 12-hour day and I'm 'on call' 24/7, including weekends. I've never managed to take more than a third of my annual leave. My discretionary compensation pay is very generous though; I like to think that it works itself out somehow. And I love my job.

I always went in early when I was office based but that was my own choice (no babies to sort out at that time). I liked to get all ready for my appointments so I could maximise my sales for the day and alot time for admin when reqd.

It would be interesting for a manager to count how many actual working hours there are in some non customer facing roles. My husband works in a very large office and we often laugh at the people who
0800 arrive at office, take time putting computer on and chatting
0820 make breakfast and coffee
0830 check out houses for sale, google and fb
0900 better do some work
1030 morning cuppa
11.00 work
12.50 get ready to go on lunch
1305 back, computer back on and chat about what you had for lunch
13.20 some work
1500 afternoon fly cup
16.00 oops better get back to it
16.30 begin packing up and computer off, chat go coworkers about what you have planned that evening.
16.55 hours done, time to go home!

They are always the ones to blow their trumpet about ‘coming in early’

Doing overtime "disguises" the fact that you need more people, and lets employers take the piss imo.

Exactly! Just don’t do it or you’re contributing to the system.

I was thinking about this the other day. My DH has signed a waiver so he can be asked more than the 45 hours legally allowed. This has been a condition of employment in 3 of his 4 jobs. In those 3 jobs I can count on one hand the number of times he has worked beyond contracted hours. In job 1 (the one with no waiver, he regularly worked 60 hours a week or more) he didn't want to but his job was impossible in the 37 hours contracted. He was a teacher.

No way - I’m out the door at the end of my shift
Although it does depend on the nature of the job, for lots of us if you do more than your contracted hours
Everyone else looks bad and it becomes acceptable practice
Ive discovered there are no brownie points for loyalty to an employer (ime loyalty or not they’ll ditch you quick if they want to )

Take away the pointless or longer than necessary meetings, waiting for or chasing people who are incapable of being on time, paperwork just to avoid the remote possibility of being sued, and ensure every bit of IT needed works, and in many jobs I think much of this extra time at work would be completely unnecessary.