How much unpaid overtime is acceptable

[Lemonwoe]

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

Almost never take lunch so around 3 hr a week standard. Hf an hr in the evening most days. During busy times could be all evenings and some of weekends.

Last week I worked 5 hrs over the weekend so altogether last week around 10 hrs and its been a pretty good week unpaid overtime wise

It depends on the job and when unpaid overtime happens. Reasonable for genuinely unforeseen crises/emergencies at work (not just someone's bad planning) or in times of other's illness perhaps, but not otherwise, I think.

I work for the NHS. 3 days a week. I never get a lunch break, so that's 1.5 hours a week and in addition to that I guess around another 3 hours a week. So that's 20% of my paid hours and it's only that little as I am very boundaried.

The teachers issue always interests me. They are paid around the same as a newly qualified nurse. So either we consider that they are paid for 9 months of the year and hence earn a wadge more than a nurse or we consider that they basically work unevenly through the year. Someone said the average for a teacher was 15 hours a week overtime. But they then get 13 weeks leave a year whereas a nurse gets 6. Prorated that averages around 47 hours a week for 46 weeks a year. So a little less than 20% of their paid hours?

I do think teachers work hard btw and my sons have some great ones so not teaching bashing. Just trying to make sense.

In reality for all professions I think it's really cheeky to expect OT of more than an hour or two a week.

Zero, unless I am absorbed in a problem and get carried away. I do not reduce my effective hourly rate, and gift my time to my employer. I earn well over 100k. No problems and no expectation of it from them. Job gets done - good enough.

Unpaid overtime should not be a thing - it’s bad management if it’s needed.

(Should say I am salaried, but salaried does not mean work all the hours god sends for free).

Its a salary not a an hourly wage so you do what is needed for the role - within reason.

@CirclesWithinCircles

Hopefully hours of unpaid overtime is becoming a bit of a thing in the past in all but certain fields where its necessary at a less senior level in order to progress.

Why? Because jobs used to be better paid, relatively speaking, in the past. There seems little point in doing hours of unpaid overtime for a dead end average salary job in the UK.

If I was paid over 100k, maybe over 120k pa, I would be doing unpaid overtime without much complaint. As it is, I've been asked to do extra hours and extra work thats not in my contract recently, and have simply added it on to my bill at the end of the month.

Why on earth would you do it without complaint just because you’re paid a certain figure?!

You’re paid that for your skills, not because you might decide to put in more hours.

I worked in marketing and at one company I routinely worked 13 hour days. All I ever got was "take a long lunch on Friday"!!! It was a pisstake I was only on 22k.

They should be given enough funding to employ 50% more teachers.

Ah, ha, ha, ha. I'd like funding for glue sticks and exercise books.

It wouldn't actually take 50% more teachers- a lot of it is admin which could be done by people on a much lower salary to free up teachers for planning. Some is admin which doesn't need doing at all.

Given the huge costs of training new teachers who leave the profession, covering staff absence and the inefficiency of having poor systems due to underinvestment I suspect that properly funding eduction would not cost that much more.

If you scrapped the expensive academy chains and exam boards you'd probably break even.

@GintyMcGinty but our contract specifies particular hours: not: every hour of your waking life.

@Lemonwoe

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

Depends on the job, the sector and what's normal. It's usually less about base salary and more about seniority and convention.

Non. I worked for 38 years in a role that resulted in my working more than my contracted hours for about 70% of the time.( Often no meal breaks) No overtime pay for this. It was just expected that you would do this, it was in a role that you could not just stop and go. The organisation was only able to function on the goodwill!! of staff. It was accepted that everyone did this. Under funded under staffed. I get so so angry that this happened. Guess which organisation. Everyone should be payed for the actual hours they work and if it is a regular thing that overtime is worked then someone needs to look at why.

None on a £60k + salary I always get paid O/T at 1.5 hourly rate, aside from the odd 30mins here and there

I’m on £43k pro-rata, 0.8 FTE. I have to log my hours and tasks and I don’t do a minute over tbh; clock in and out on time and take a full hour unpaid lunch break. You don’t see me for dust after 5.30pm.

I’m senior management and progress just fine. (But I am senior enough and in demand enough and don’t give a toss... Imagine if I were junior at my company I’d log more overtime trying to impress and look hungry for it. Which is bullshit but how my industry works.)

@Chillychangchoo

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

???

You genuinely think teachers work evenings etc because they like it?
Am assuming this is a wind-up for your own delectation/amusement and hoping you don't ever intend to use the services of teaching staff to educate your little darlings...

Ps should probably have ignored you like everyone else 😆

None. If you have specified hours (which it seems you do from your update), then any time over that should be paid or flexi. Like you say, the more you do, the more you will be given, and if its being done outside of your working hours it shouldn't become part of your role.

Every shift i and my colleagues work over depending on how busy the department is (A&E)

It's rare we leave on time but we know what we signed up too

0 have progressed quickly within the company and whilst there might be the very odd occasion I’ll work extra it’s certainly not the norm
But appreciate this depends on the industry

About 25 years ago I worked in accounts on what would be around the equivalent. I did maybe 4 or 5 hours extra every month-end, and at year-end it could be 15-20 hours extra over a few days. Other than that, very little.

I only work part-time now, and keep a tally. If I have to work extra hours at busy periods I then take time off when it's quiet so it all levels out.

NHS. Quite a lot.

I’m on 34k now and do 0 hours overtime. When I was on 48k and a senior manager 60 hour weeks including travel wasn’t unheard of. After taking a few years out and coming back to a lower position my family made me vow I wouldn’t turn into a work monster again. Luckily I have a fair manager and if we do have a hard week he allows us a long weekend.

I will say I previously worked many hours unpaid, but it was a toxic culture really. When I went back after maternity leave I was unable to as had to pick up DD from childcare (DH was away with work a lot so it often was up to me). I found I started to be poorly regarded as I wasn't putting the extra graft in, which is indirect discrimination imo. Vowed to never again, my job now isn't as well paid, but I finish when I am due to finish (will do overtime if absolutely needed), and can switch off in the evenings. Worth every penny.

72k and work through lunch daily so that's 5 hours right there and usually one late night a week. I work to the needs of the business so it's on me really. If I don't, I'm the one with shit raining down on them after a few weeks.
A few years ago on minimum wage, 0 unpaid overtime.

@Lemonwoe then you need to push back. If they give you more just politely say you don’t have the capacity but that you will happily do it if you could have a discussion about what they will take off you.

I can't believe how many teachers routinely work extra and routinely accept it. Teachers must be exhausted and then are expected to provide good quality education.