Shouldn't full time royals work a 5-day week?

[ohprettybaby]

I think it is high time that working royals were not measured by the number of engagements they do (as they can do several in one day so that is misleading).

In general, why can't full time working royals work a 5-day week with holidays and bank holidays similar to that of much of the UK population?

Obviously some engagements are not carried out during the daytime but they would get time off in lieu for evening engagements.

Not all if their work is restricted to engagements but, during their set hours, if not fulfilling an engagement, they would be undertaking research or working on their own charitable works.

Different rules would apply for royals carrying out engagements after their State Retirement age. (You can't expect them to do 5 days at 9 -5.30).
Set a different amount of hours per day or per week for part time royals, again with pro rated holiday entitlement.
Surely this would ensure they were more in tune with the population?

YABU to apply your 9-5 mentality to their line of work. There are plenty of businesses where people consult or provide advisory and they are paid according to their contribution, the hours vary.

All this is boring.
What if you reviewed it and found that some royals work more than 5 days? Do we also need to performance manage them? How do you measure being 'royal'?

Personally I'm not st all pro royalty. I'd happily abolish it especially if it meant that people talked about other things.

That's a bit silly really.

Daft suggestion. So if they have to fly to Oz for a Commonwealth visit for a couple of weeks, they should be paid overtime?

It's not comparable with a 9-5 job. It's a lifetime's commitment to public service.

That's not going to work.

OK fine they work 9-5 and aren't obligated to travel or attend official engagements in the evening or entertain dignitaries after hours. They should also be allowed a lunch break where they don't have to talk or be nice to anyone. If we have a royal family they're going to cost us money and despite the fact that we're giving them money we still have to treat them as human beings who want privacy and their own lives.

Do you mean they need accountability?

"It's not comparable with a 9-5 job. It's a lifetime's commitment to public service."

^^ this!!

There are too many folk who want them to somehow flagellate themselves in order to maintain their existence.

If you feel that way, we might as well give up the monarchy and the civil list altogether. Halfway houses where they approximate the average 9-5 is just a bit silly.

They routinely do several in one day, meticulously planned, eg, driven to engagement 1, declare building open, unveil plaque etc, driven to 2/ to inspect factory, then to 3/charity or business lunch, helicoptered (younger royals only, possibly ) to 4/afternoon business meeting.
And the drives are all planned with police escorts to close side roads and radio on ahead to clear traffic etc.
My DB used to have posh driving jobs and was once engaged to take the Princess of Wales from Central London to Windsor, with entourage, police escorts, etc etc. Did it in less than 20 minutes. (He said she was really nice, chatty and made sure they all got something to eat and drink after the arduous journey, BTW!)

if not fulfilling an engagement, they would be undertaking research or working on their own charitable works.

Research? What do you mean? Like they’d all have to have a field of academic research that they spend time on?!

I don’t know. No I don’t think it should be as you suggest but I would agree that having done 200 engagements in a year sounds way more than it often is as one engagement can be half an hour of chatting and then on to the next one.

To clarify my point the several engagements a day not only make it look like they are doing loads and loads, it's not exactly difficult for them. Might be boring as hell though.
Say they do 200 engagements per year, (don't know exact numbers, it's just for illustration purposes) it sounds like a lot but it won't be anything like 200 days work. They also have two full months a year off, all of August and mid-December to mid January.
Remember also Prince Charles used to ride out with the Quorn hunt every time it went out....

So they only go on engagements? The Queen doesn't deal with any paperwork of any kind? YABU!!

if not fulfilling an engagement, they would be undertaking research or working on their own charitable works.

You think they don't already do this?

More simply, we need to abolish the monarchy.

More simply, we need to abolish the monarchy.

Yes please!

In principle yes, but in practical terms, could we let our legislature finish with bloody Brexit first, before we overhaul and replace our monarchy?

9-5
That’s out of touch with a more bog standard job, let alone a highly specialised one like “Royal”.

Let’s take a 3 week foreign tour, and assume travel at either end - so 4 weekends, and 3x Mon-Fri.
All the time they are away, their time is controlled by “UK PLC” - so that should count as working time, whether they are actively engaged in tour activities, or not.
Each weekend should be considered unsociable hours - so let’s give them TOIL at time and a half for that.
Mon-Fri 9-5, that’s a standard date. 5pm through til 9am, that’s 16 hours unsociable TOIL.
Add all that together, and you get hours “given” to UK PLC of 768. That’s 96 “normal” 8 hour 9-5 days. Which is 19 weeks.

So for a 3 week tour, with TOIL, they’ve banked 19 weeks towards your “must work full time”.

Back in the real world, many people on MN working perfectly common roles travel for work, stay overnight for site visits. It’s not unusual to not be paid anything for our own time being given to the company. However, that’s because the salary should reflect it. Contractually, I work a 39 hour week. In fact, I often stay away from home and nobody counts the hours, because I get paid fairly for it.

Royal “salaries” are not ever going to be a per hour basis.

@Ijustwanttoretire I believe the Queen actually reviews parliamentary papers every single day delivered in a red box.

YANBU to think they should be working a decent number of hours, but we don't know how much they work in truth.

If they show up for an hour or two at a charity, they'll have done some reading on the charity, the issues etc. You often hear people comment on how well informed they are etc.

I suspect that fittings and other wardrobe stuff actually takes up a huge amount of time for the higher profile females, which must be extremely tedious for any who don't enjoy that. It's a shame there's such high expectations placed on their appearance.

People saying "well it's half an hour engagement and done". Lesson at schools is less than an hour too but that doesn't mean teacher works only that time...
Prep counts too. Travel. Having a brief on what the engagement is about, go over and learn parts of the speech, learn who will be there etc.
So 200 half an hour engagements are not 100 hours of work in reality, but much much more. And that's just the engagement part. Paperwork, charity etc. All takes time

Nurses, doctors, shop keepers, hairdressers, policemen, firemen, priests, vicars, call centre staff, local councillors, MPs.. In fact EVERYONE should work 9-5 Monday to Friday.

Surely there's not much need for anyone to do anything outside of those hours.

@MindyStClaire I expect it’s a pre-digested briefing, not actual reading, in most cases. It still takes time to listen to the briefing.

That said, my cousin went to an Institute of Logistics (something like that!) and met Princess Anne, and said she was really well informed and seemed genuinely interested - so definitely not just a key word briefing in the car on the way there!

Yeah, they don’t just do the engagements, they prep for them first plus there must be a fair amount of paperwork and shit that comes with being a patron of a charity (and they have multiple).

More places should abolish the 9-5 as a way of working, if anything

I've watched the Crown, the queen's always reading paperwork.