How much unpaid overtime is acceptable

[Lemonwoe]

Just curious. At a salary of £40k, how much unpaid overtime would you expect to do?

As many as the employee accepts. I would accept 0.

You shouldn’t be doing any! If you want to volunteer maybe go and work in a charity shop. A decent manager should keep an eye on hours and insist people take TOIL. It’s a sad state of affairs.

1. Know your worth.

Teacher here so most evenings a few hours (accept friday, then about 3-4 hours at weekend)

I'm a university academic and I do at least 10-15 hours extra a week and very rarely get to use all my annual leave.

I don’t like the idea of doing any as a regular, expected part of the job.
A busy period I’d be more flexible but tbh it depends on how I’m treated generally at work. Where I work now is pretty flexible so I’m willing to be flexible as well. I’ve also worked somewhere awful with a horrible boss and an awful culture and my attitude to doing unpaid overtime for them was far less generous.

It's very swings and round about where I am, my boss knows that I work evenings and do stuff at weekends semi regularly. If I'm doing something and still have 30mins or so of work to do I wouldn't just stop because it's 5pm. He appreciates it and is very lenient with holiday working away etc. He also knows that if I were to finish a big task at 3pm it's unlikely im starting anything else that day just for the sake of it.

I’m happy to do some if its an important deadline and my team needs me. If I go over my contracted hours by a few during a time like that it’s no biggie but i certainly wouldn’t do it as a frequent general expectation and my boss wouldnt let me do it either because they care about work life balance at my place of work. And i don’t think I should consider myself lucky for that - we all should get paid for the job we do and be supported to balance our work and the rest of our lives. If there is too much work for the hours then they need to bring more people in or adjust goals and targets for each role.

To answer questions, the average Secondary school teacher (FT) works about 55 hours a week.

So it's madness, but the holidays do compensate a bit.

Holidays are unpaid. My contracted dates are 195/year. My salary just gets spread over 12 months.

I’m on £70k so I do quite a lot of unpaid over time. On £55k I didn’t do any. But it’s more about the needs of the role than the pay grade.

None. Work needs to be paid for. If you have to put in overtime because there is too much work, then they need to pay or give you time off in lieu. If I had to work extra because I had been messing around, then I would not claim.

Probably an hour and a half extra each day - so 6 hours per week overtime. Also on 40K. Sometimes it’s as high as 10 hours

In my experience, in a management position you need to do as many hours as necessary to carry out your role for a monthly salary. Efficiency tends to follow experience so as you get older, then you are able to work less hours to achieve the same results. If you are in management but constantly working under pressure then maybe you are not delegating enough.

I’m a school leader (not Headteacher). I probably do 10-15 hours unpaid overtime a week, although my contract is different to what it was when I was a classroom teacher.

At some points in the year I do more, at others I do less depending on what is going on. The most unpaid overtime I have ever done is as safeguarding lead.

I’m not in management: it’s a technical role. Additional duties have been added to my role which are not typical duties for my role (I’ve done the same role in several different companies)

None (on about 45k). My workload is too high, my team has been slashed and I am underresourced, so it doesn't all get done but I'm not going to be rewarded for it so I just priortise what's most important. My free time is more important to me.

2-3 hours a year. I might stay behind 5/10 minutes to finish a spreadsheet. Or I might log in after hours to restart a service to avoid disruption, so maybe 10 minutes here and there.

The contract is two way.

You agree to work 40 hours a week for £40k.

They agree to pay you £40k for 40 hours.

End of.

Is a salary accurate though if people are regularly working 10 and more hours overtime a week? Because if you get paid for a standard working week at one rate but you actually work way over that hours wise - your actual salary is lower isn’t it?

0 unless you’re a teacher because they love working for free martyrs.

Not for profit so always done overtime unpaid, it's normal

None, you shouldn't be working for free.

Zero. It shouldn't be accepted or normalised to work for free.

I generally try to do none.

I work 37.5 hours a week and earn £34k. It’s a small company and TOIL doesn’t exist.

I’d happily work late to get something done if I could then, say, finish early on Friday. But the company I work for doesn’t do that.

They’re not flexible, so neither am I.

I’m a newly qualified Teacher and I probably work 20-30 hour unpaid overtime a week, mainly over the weekend. I know that’s an averagish underpaid overtime amount for teachers. I know many who do well in excess of this. My ex was a head of department teacher and when we worked out his paid-for hours vs the hours he actually worked in a year, he was making less than the minimum wage.

OP unfortunately it’s not offset by the holidays as they are unpaid. Teacher are paid to work a certain amount of contracted hours per year but the vast majority work well in excess of this. Sometimes up to 50% more hours unpaid. I agree with you, it’s insane.

@00100001

2-3 hours a year. I might stay behind 5/10 minutes to finish a spreadsheet. Or I might log in after hours to restart a service to avoid disruption, so maybe 10 minutes here and there.

The contract is two way.

You agree to work 40 hours a week for £40k.

They agree to pay you £40k for 40 hours.

End of.

But... saying that. I'll often go home early etc.or go via post office on way in, do might be 5-10 mins late.

So I guess it evens out to nada.