Work timesheets

[atchoooo]

I work in the civil service as a Senior Executive Officer.

There’s timesheets where you record the time you started work, time you finished, and the time you took your lunch break. If I work in excess of my working hours, I can take the additional hours as a flexi credit. I can use flexi credits for time off on a future date.

Now in my experience people at my grade don’t bother taking their flexi leave - it’s almost a given that you work until the job is done including through your lunch.

Due to the nature of my job, I tend to regularly work over my working hours. I am required to travel across the country for example so this might mean spending my evening travelling for work - which I should get a flexi credit for. Also even when I travel during the working day, I’m still expected to complete my usual work so I usually work extra to mop up on weeks with travel.

aibu to start taking advantage of the flexi credits and book my time off? I feel that I won’t be seen as a team player due to the workaholic culture but frankly I’m getting burnt out.

I'm CS. As far as I know all SOs and HOs take their leave and it is encouraged by the G7/6s. It's a shame that your business stream that is not the norm. I use flexi credit to strike a decent balance and it works. Sorry to hear your feeling burnt out. Take the time you have earned.

I think my friend is a G7 and she takes hers.

Culture is made by the managers. If you use the time, and encourage your staff to use their time, culture, very slowly, changes over time.

Take the time.

As a bare minimum I’d be claiming the flexi for your travel.

I'd take the time personally. We seem to have a culture where people work on NWD's which I really dislike (I don't unless I'm very behind).

You need to do what works for you & that includes not getting burnt out frankly.

Thanks everyone, I was half expecting posters to say to suck it up!

I’m an SEO and I absolutely take my flexitime back! My managers encourage it. In fact we aren’t allowed to accumulate more than 20 hours so if it gets to that stage we have to take it!

@Purplevioletsherbert does your manager actually check your flexi sheets? Mine couldn’t care less

Everyone takes flexi time in my current directorate (even G6).

In my previous role, no one did - long hours were expected and a part of the job. It was even mentioned at interview that the hours were rough, unpredictable and that toil was rarely to be taken because of the nature of the work. In 2022… I went through a stage of sleeping in the office as we didn’t have enough staff. If someone had turned around and asked for TOIL…they’d have been laughed out the building.

It entirely depends on your job and Department.

What grade would you be at SEO? DH is a grade 6 and takes a day of flexi every other week, no one seems to have an issue with it.

SEO is two grades below G6.

Nope, I send them to her every four weeks but she doesn’t really check them - she trusts that I complete them honestly. But if there was an audit (and I’ve been audited twice in previous roles) I would be breaching our flexi policy by carrying over more than 20 hours credit or 10 hours debit between sheets.

If you place no value on your time, who else is going to?

Get it taken.

You should really be taking your flexi at that pay band, bloody hell what a terrible culture if its not encouraged!

God what department are you in? Remind me not to transfer there! I've never met a SEO who didn't use their flexi time.

I’m an SEO and I take my time back, not sure why you wouldn’t. I always look at it like this, if I resigned, they’d have to manage without me and then possibly replace me. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not that important!

Take the time back.

I mread a very interesting article about google (i think) and places who let staff take as much leave as they wanted. Turns out people too less than they were entitled to because they didn’t want to look like slackers.

people work too hard and you are entitled to down time

Take it. Flexitime is part of your total compensation. It's there to allow you to manage the weeks you work like a maniac with some weeks with some downtime. At least have some short days and e.g. pick the kids up from school on Friday and do something fun, or make sure you make it to the yoga class you miss 50% of the time because you can't get away from your desk. In a previous job, I used it to take Wednesday mornings off when I was marathon training so that I could get my threshold workout in having fueled properly before and afterwards.

Take the flexi time back, within the rules of your system. If you accrue more than the system allows, raise it with your manager as you shouldn't routinely be working over the limits of the system (and they have discretion to allow occasional exceptions to the rules to allow you to take back excessive flexi worked during financial year end etc for business need).

Working excessive hours and not taking them back breeds a terrible culture. Flexi time is one of the best benefits of CS, so use it!

If your manager doesn't check your flexi sheets, don't worry about it. Just keep meticulous records and evidence that you have sent your flexi sheets to your manager as required.

Be absolutely honest and transparent about all things flexi. It is fraud to lie on a flexi sheet and will end your CS career if your employer thinks they can evidence false records. I know it feels frustrating to record times every day (multiple times!) when your manager doesn't even look at them, but do it properly anyway. If you slip in to recording times once a week and putting down what you remember, the times will be out by 5/10 mins or you'll forget a long lunch or something, and if anybody ever wants to fire you, they'll find those discrepancies through IT records. I have seen it done.

I have worked as a manager in CS for 20+ years and have used every flexi in the flexi system (and the leave system too!). Those benefits compensate for lower than industry pay, so take advantage of them (but stay in the rules and keep lots of records!).

Thanks all. I work at DWP in a contentious area, and the general culture of the team isn’t great tbh. Interesting to see how experiences differ across CS!

Take yours, perhaps don't do them all on a Friday, or if there is a particularly busier period.

This can be difficult if there's a culture of not taking the time back, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't.

Poster upthread gave great advice, stay within the policy, be diligent about your record keeping and take the time back. I imagine your manager doesn't check your flexi sheet because they think flexi doesn't really apply to their team.

I've worked in various different govt depts/teams with different flexi attitudes and policies, it can be tricky particularly if you travel for work.

My message to my team is that they shouldn't work through lunch, after hours etc. and that if they can't finish their work they flag it to me. I can then make a business case. If everyone is working extra hours and not saying so, it's very difficult to make a business case for increased staffing.

The thing is with headcount capacity and recruitment freezes we are expected to be doing more with less resource

Doing more with less resource is supposed to mean identifying "stuff" that doesn't really need doing (prioritising), or simplifying processes, or sharing resources . It really really shouldn't mean people routinely working more hours than contracted.