My coworker does unpaid overtime but I don’t want to

[Evangelineee]

Started the job a year and a half ago. It’s a team of 4, plus the manager. Two of my coworkers did the same job, whereas me and the other did something slightly different. The other two people, plus the manager would always be working in the evening. We only get paid until 6pm (it’s flexitime though so if you start earlier you can finish earlier but can’t start later than 10) but my coworker would be logged on at home at like 8pm. I never did that in my previous role, and it was never expected of me anyway because my job was slightly different to theirs.

One of these people left and I have taken on their role. There is a lot to do and there are time constraints and deadlines. My coworker who I am now working with never ever finishes when she should. She is off on Thursdays and even logs on then. My manager at first told her to stop doing this but she never listened so he doesn’t bother telling her anymore because she just does it anyway. However, she is now expecting me to do it, because the person who had this job before me also stayed later and they would work together. Now I log off and she does overtime on her own, but it isn’t paid. She keeps asking me if I can log back on later that evening. For a few days this week I have worked 30 minutes over to finish things off, which is fine. But I don’t really want to regularly be working at 8/9pm. I asked my manager whether this is expected of me, and he said absolutely not and mentioned in a meeting that no one should be working past their 7.5 hours. But now she’s making digs about team players and about how she is doing more work than “other people” meaning me!

Please could I have some suggestions on how to handle this?

She shouldn't keep asking you and keeping your Manager out of the loop. Your Manager clearly knows she is working overtime though and hasn't put a stop to it, or the other colleague working on their non-working day.

Address it with your Manager, explain that you are a team player, willing to pull your weight, happy to work a little extra to finish off something urgent, but not willing to work hours of unpaid overtime on a regular (daily) basis and would like their support in managing the workload of the team to avoid causing issues and resentment. That is part of your Manager's role.

To the colleague, don't say "I have a life", that is unnecessarily critical and insulting to them. Just say that you are not available or willing to work unpaid and unplanned overtime every day. You are not expecting them to complete anything you have left unfinished until the next day. And encourage them to speak to the Manager about the workload as well.

She's a mug. It sounds like there is more work than two people can really do, and if she stopped working for free your employer would realise that and have to hire another person. But because she's doing all this work for free, they can save themselves some money.

Either that or she's not as productive as she likes to make out and she's having to make up for work she's not doing during her contracted hours.

Tell your manager you think she's struggling with her workload and needs some help.

Bigger fool her if she's happy to do unpaid overtime! I certainly wouldn't!
I agree, speak to your manager and tell them she's making you feel uncomfortable now by making digs. Tell them to speak to her.
Silly woman!

She sounds very immature. Next time she raises it with you just ask her to take it up with your manager if she thinks the team is under resourced or suggest she asks for training in time/priority management. You don't have to justify your work pattern, just bat it away.

I agree with cc'ing your manager in every time she asks you. I'd also go as far as saying if she doesn't stop asking you'll be speaking to management/HR (if relevant) about her harassing you to work unpaid overtime when that is not her place to do so.

Stick to your guns. Don't give reasons for not doing it, your manager is on your side if she's been told before not to work. Some people will do absolutely anything to martyr themselves for a company who would have them replaced by the end of the week. 🙄

Am I right that your manager knows and agrees with you?
That the person who does the unpaid time is not your senior or supervisor?
In that case I would resort to the MN standard and say that "no" is a complete sentence or echo Phoebe

I'm not so sure it's a colleague problem.

With so many people doing unpaid, it sounds more like a culture issue and the manager needs to sort it.

Sounds like our organisation (part of civil service). THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT TO WORK UNPAID OVERTIME, but if you're late with your targets you will be in deep shit and being because you all kept complaining about pressure to do unpaid overtime we will bring in a new policy to support you , but you should be able to do the job in your hours so let's send you on a time management course and discuss your capability. Heard as just shut up and do the job quietly no matter how many hours you take.

No team to manage at the moment but in my last role I did, and I had someone like this. You need to flag to your manager, as there are several issues with this.

Firstly her well-being as she shouldn't be doing all these extra hours (I'd be checking whether the working time directive applies as well). Secondly the impact on her colleagues - in this case she's making digs directly at you, but it can also put people under pressure indirectly by making them feel like they should be doing what she's doing. Thirdly, is there genuinely so much work that it needs this extra time? If so then the firm needs to know because they are under-resourced, and her doing constant overtime will mask this.

If there is already enough resource then I'd want to understand why she feels she needs to do this - is she making the best use of her time during core hours? Is there a mindset thing where she needs to learn that work will always need to be done, so there is no such thing as 'clear'? Or is there a personal issue? With the person I was managing, it transpired they were staying late because they were avoiding an unhappy home situation.

Yeah she is definitely doing more work. I’ll give you a vague example.. we have to add people to the system at work that are coming onboard. There might be a list of 30 people that need adding. I will get through 10 in the day (plus other tasks) and leave my other 5 for the next day. She won’t leave hers until the next day she will log off once it is complete, however long that takes. She came in the other day complaining that she didn’t get to bed until 1am because she had to finish so much work. She said “it would be ok if I had some help, then I could log off earlier” I said to her well you should have just logged off, the manager is not expecting you to work until that time and would be actually mad at you because he says if people work late they are unproductive the next day. She says she feels like she HAS to because her to do list is so never ending that there just isn’t enough hours in the day to get it all done. I understand her, because it can feel stressful like work is piling on top of you, and I have even contemplated logging on on a Sunday so that Monday isn’t so bad. But I stop myself because why should I?!

I have managed a similar person and it was simply what she was like. We had an issue that she was doing things that our insurance would not cover (long story but she wasn't even covered for being in the building at the time she was) and I had to threaten her with a disciplinary to make her stop.

Just completely blank her when she makes digs like you haven't heard her. She'll get bored with zero reaction.
I have a colleague like her, doing work on her days off/staying late. More fool them, I don't work for free and there is no expectation to either, it's never harmed my career. People who work for free are dim, these employers wouldn't care a jot if you were to drop down dead tomorrow.

I would suggest that when she starts such conversations you grey rock her. Just massively change the subject or don't answer. Don't reward her with attention.

@Evangelineee It sounds like she struggles with time management and task priotisation. As people have said, a lot of jobs always have work outstanding to finish at the end of the day, knowing how to manage competing tasks throughout the week is a skill.

I agree with this. Each time she does extra hours she is doing a disservice to the team. If those making resource decisions realise that the work cannot be done in the allocated working hours by the people they have in place, they should be able to make the decision to hire someone else to help whether full or part time.

but as pp said, the person working extra hours for free is masking the need for more people resource.

I was would replying to her that I have a life outside of work each time she throws a dig.

I worked in an office where I used to, with permission, visit the office on Sundays to complete work for my degree. Use computer, printer quiet comfy workspace.

One woman used to come in and do work, when i saw her taking her trash out with her I asked why. She said don’t tell anyone you saw me - I don’t want anyone to know if can’t do all work in the week. She didn’t want trash in bin as evidence.
Another woman worked late while her DH was working late … she was literally keeping busy while waiting.
Another worked late because her transport was cheaper after certain time

Since then I realised unpaid overtime -

1. person can’t do work in normal hours - is slow
2. person wants to get shes - putting in extra hours
3. person is there killing time, keeping busy til a particular time
4. hates being home ..
5. etc

Maybe you ask her if she’s just slow?

The problem might not just be your colleague - on the assumption you’re all never running out of work it sounds like there might just be too much work for the number of people - ie if she didn’t do the extra deadline would be missed.

The company / manager might say “don’t do it” because legally they kind of have to but many don’t mean it and fully know and want people to be doing this. (Professional service firms for example often really expect extra hours from people at certain levels).

Is it definitely a her thing and not a culture thing?

I can understand working longer occasionally but would expect paid or the time back. Every night is insane.

Be firm with her "if you have workload issues speak to manager. I will never work evenings unless manager asks and i am paid, do not speak to me about this again."

She is driving this problem - by doing extra work that you’re not paid for, she’s becoming resentful but it is also masking the problem. If she brings it up again, I would suggest you reiterate that you will only work hours you are paid for and suggests she does the same - because then you can understand what resource is actually needed for your roles. Ask her to stop working at 6pm and then you can see how much work is regularly left over e.g. if you are expected to give through 30 things and 10 are always left over, you need more resource.

Stick to your guns - work for the hours you are paid and don’t feel bad.

If there is genuinely too much work, suggest to her that you get together to put to the Manager the need to recruit someone else. But is it in fact the case that she just works slowly?

I've noticed over the years that people's attitude to working extra unpaid hours can be dependant on the culture at previous jobs or with former managers. It can sometimes take people years to get out of the mindset that everything HAS to be done by them "or there will be trouble" (exact word I've heard used by bosses in the past).

Certain types of organisation seem to have unpaid overtime as an expectation e.g. Law or Consultancy, but also I think to some degree it depends on the level of work being done. As a senior consultant I was expected to "just get the job done" however long it took, but junior staff like admins working for me I would be quite strict on them not doing over their hours. But then again I was earning over twice what they were, so that seemed fair to me!

Certainly in my present (low level) role my boss is very strict on us not working over our hours. Due to my mindset on getting urgent things done asap, plus we do occasionally have the odd rare thing that really genuinely has to be done immediately that will take us past 5pm, I automatically pick those up as all the others have families. So we've agreed that I can do recorded flexi time but I MUST take the time off in lieu - she has been known to query the building sign out data when she's suspected I've worked longer than my timesheet says!

A point that needs to be raised is if this is a comparatively lower paid role, the additional hours she's working on a regular basis may take her hourly rate below the legal requirement - I know if I worked an extra hour and a half every working day this would take me below NMW.

If your manager finds talking to this staff member doesn't stop her extra unpaid hours, he can probably get log on data from your IT team to get the true picture of her total working hours and use that as justification to request additional staff. He may even be able to get a block put on her account so she's not able to be logged on say before 8am or after 7pm, or at weekends which I've seen done, to prevent her from this extra working.

Another thing I've seen done is that only the urgent work gets done by the main staff, then "catch up" work is done by having a temp in for a few days once a month or so.

Sorry, random "brain dump" around this area!

exactly this, and this would be my response next time a direct dig about being a team player was sent my way.

The rest is for your manager to manage and they aint been managin so far

@Evangelineee is she a very slow worker who is overwhelmed with her work??

Yeah I might just have a word with her and see if she would be willing to have a conversation together with the manager to say we probably need another person. The person who did this job before me was actually sacked because he was slacking basically and not doing enough work. When I was asked if I wanted to move into his role I said no because he was always working late at night and I don’t want to be doing that. They said he was doing that because he wasn’t doing his work during the day. He was just leaving it until the evening. However now I’m wondering if that’s even true. I’m thinking there’s just too much work for two people. It’s like people have said here, if my coworker stopped doing overtime they would see, because the amount of work getting done would decrease.

I’d just say to her if she wants to be a mug and work for free she can, but not to speak to you about it again