AIBU to expect my workload to fit within contracted hours?

[worklifebalance26]

NC for this - I'm not sure if I am being U or not. I earn 55K in the public sector (I have excellent qualifications and this is what you'd expect from a mid-level professional in my area). I'm increasingly finding it very stressful to fit everything into my working hours (9-5 Mon-Friday). I was tempted earlier to do some work to ease the burden off me tomorrow, but one part of me feels that's a slippery slope to burnout after I previously felt like that whilst studying and working. Since then I feel quite protective of my own time. On the other hand, I earn a good salary and know lots of people paid less than me have to work over their hours.

AIBU to think the work should fit into my standard hours?

I worked for 20 years in the public sector and never at even a junior management level. It was the norm in my team to work several hours’ unpaid overtime a week. If you didn’t, it would have been noticed.

I’m with you OP. Public sector, workload far exceeds the contracted hours. I’m sick of it. I’m all for flexibility at my level (earn around £60k) but I work 10-12 hours a day and can’t get through the workload and when I try to discuss the things I don’t have time to complete with my manager, it doesn’t help. He just says ‘you need to find more time to prioritise this’ - like I can magic up the time. I’m sick of it. Yes, on paper I earn a decent wage. If I worked out my hourly rate, it’s pretty crap.

Agreed.

It also depends on the person, which is why it is so hard to judge. The workload may be reasonable, but you are a little slower than someone else. Similarly, someone else may be slower than you etc.

I’m a firm believer that working overtime should be the exception and not the norm. So yes, there’s some times you might have to step up and work late but not as a weekly pattern. I’m nhs and work hard during my hours, often skip lunch breaks due to meetings etc but I generally finish on time. My family deserves a mum that’s home for them.

I’ve also worked in journalism (years ago now) where we worked late all the time - 8am to 10pm was normal at least 3 days a week. I was made redundant by head office where I was a number on a spreadsheet and that really reset my thinking. Working your paid hours isn’t lazy. Things just have to move to the next day if they’re not done. If you want to stay on to finish it because it’ll make you sleep better or there’s a genuine deadline that will impact others then fine, but if deadlines are unrealistic you have to set new ones.

oh and the narrative that overtime in teaching is the worst really frustrates me. Teachers do seem to believe they have it bad. Rather than thinking of teaching as a job with 13 weeks holiday, we need to see it as a job where you earn £40k + and work an average of 37-40 hours per week with 4-5 weeks annual leave. Time not in the classroom is planning and marking time.

I have a friend in a similar role and she does a huge amount of work outside of normal hours. Personally I suspect in her case it's excessive but I don't think it's all avoidable.

I think you need to what you're doing, what you can offload, and what's priority and ring fence how much extra you're prepared to take on.

I'm always in work half an hour early (secondary school, support staff) and do an evening shift once a week in a different area that is basically just being available if needed, so can fit in a few extra hours admin then. I might also do an extra day or take some work home at the end of a half term to tie up loose ends and I check emails on a Sunday night so I know what I'm going into on a Monday morning.

That is enough to stop me stressing, but not so much I feel resentful of the fact I do it because they won't pay for adequate staffing.

Don't be a martyr...

I reached Head of Team level in my previous career, so senior management, and always made it clear I would not do any unpaid hours. I attended the occasional evening or weekend event but always got time off in lieu for that.

You need to prioritise your life outside work too and have good boundaries.

My experience across the public sector for the last 17 years is that there is always more workload than staff to do it, at all levels. The daily mail trope of the lazy civil servant/pubic sector worker getting paid a fortune for doing little is a fairy tale

I remember being at that kind of ' middle management ' point, and wondering what I needed to do to succeed ( ok, let me rephrase that - wondering what the bare minimum I needed to do to succeed would be ) - and in the end I concluded that I'd give them around an extra hour / hour and a half per week.

I'd keep flexibility around when I did it - sometimes an extra half an hour in the morning, sometimes staying late half an hour, sometimes working through lunchtime - be warned though, these aren't always that visible to the rest of the business..

Every now and then, I'd work the std 9-5 through the week, and then chuck an hour at my emails on either the Saturday or Sunday - that definitely got noticed!

I found that was enough to create the impression that I was going above and beyond - but not enough to cause burnout or to feel like I was losing my worklife balance.

It's actually sad that we feel we NEED to do this, and can't just work the hours they're paying us to work - but sadly sometimes it's only the people who do go above and beyond who get ahead.

YANBU, but this is why you need to have the transparency and be able to speak to your senior lead and be honest about your workload. If you don't, you end up burning out and that helps no one.

Also NHS, non-clinical role and we all joke about how seeing the amount of extra unpaid hours our seniors are expected to do (often with zero notice) on B 8b and 8d has stopped any of us aspiring to those levels.

I don’t know which area of the public service you are in. I am in the civil service and my senior manager always tells me to not kill myself to fit work in. We are nit doctors and nothing major will happen if something is late. There is usually so many levels above you anyway, that someone more senior absorbs the risk anyway

I'm in an unusual position for an 8a that I am extremely clinical. Most of my workload has a direct impact on clients so it's hard/impossible to just say I'll leave it as it will directly impact on the care that people receive.

Get advice from your union and if you’re not a member, join. Become acquainted with policies and procedures and arrangements around working time agreements for your sector. Find non confrontational ways to say that parts of your job are not possible within contracted hours and just know that you’re doing the right thing. Don’t work beyond your hours or you just devalue your own skills and set a precedent.

I assume you mean patients? I am aware of the language move to clients from service users but it doesn’t sound very clinical. I understand the guilt, however, in the grant scheme of things how much will a delayed on your end impact the end result? Put it in perspective is directly influenced by you or will it have to go through 10 other people? Will a day delay on your end cause months of delays down the line or will it be negligible ? You got to weight up the risks. If it is high risk and priority then delegate, that is the perk of a higher grade. In my organisation it is usually the lower grades that are drawing because they do the day to day work, whereas the more senior grades always delegate.

Yes, I mean patients, although I don't refer to them as such. Well, if I don't prep my sessions or groups it will have a pretty significant impact. If I don't write my clinical notes or court letters or attend meetings around domestic abuse or safeguarding then it's going to have a pretty significant impact. I can't delegate those things to others.

Work efficiently and do your job to the best of your ability but arrive and go home on time, take your breaks and your annual leave. How else will management see any gaps in workforce of you do unpaid extra? If you died (God forbid) they would replace you. Value your own time.

All I can suggest is to look at efficiency. Are you wasting productive time in meetings, small talk in the office, getting distracted by phone etc. If so, can you do changes to reduce distractions and meetings? If not and the issue is genuinely workload over time and not just at peak periods, than request stress risk assessment. You and your manager then put mitigations in place to prevent burnout. That may be finishing early some days or flexi time, delegating etc. NHS has duty as an employer and despite the high burnout rates in there unpaid overtime and execcsive workload is unacceptable employment rights perspective. Frame it around health and safety and keep a paperwork for the union if things escalate.

The expectation got your grade and salary is that of flexibility as workload may fluctuate (mine is the same). However, it is a job and a salary that should serve you. £55k is not even such a great salary to kill yourself over.

I have been there and done that, while studying and working. Like you, not anymore. You are extremely replaceable to them/an emploter in general. They will absolutely not hesitate to dismiss you if you went off with burnout and stress for extended period and the salary won’t even cover your therapy bill to recover.

Put your guilt aside, and embed it your head that you burning out will cause more harm to you clients than getting things done with delay. Your oxygen mask first.

ps I don’t know how to remove the bold -sorry!

Catering and bar staff on min wage have been expected to work well past closing time unpaid for years though....you get to leave when the cleandown has been done

I don’t think many NHS jobs fit into the time allotted. I’m a GP and I reckon about a third of the hours I spend working are essentially unpaid.

Can you record any hours you work over as flexi and use the hours to finish early when not so busy. I'm public sector and we have a Flexi system where we can work extra hours if busy and save them up to take a Flexi day off when we have accrued enough hours. This means we can work a little extra if there is a deadline to meet and take a bit of time off if it's quiet. Over the year the hours worked do fit onto standard hours though as all evens out. Is a pain time recording though.