Does anybody have an annualised hours contract?

[IwishIwasmoreorganised]

If so how have you found it?

How do you plan your hours?

Any tips that you could pass on?

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Iwish

There are loads of different types of annualised hours contracts can you be more specific?

I used to and it was amazing. It averaged 728 hours a year and it was up to me how I worked it with some minor limitations. It worked out at about 61 hours a month and some months were busier than others. I did it for a few years and got to know when i was likely to be busy and planned around. It meant that i could usually be around if the Dc's needed me and tended to increase my hours in term time and work as little as possible in the school holidays.

I manage two people on annualised hours and it works really well. Basically they are paid for a set amount of hours (975) so we just take away their holiday entitlement from that and ensure that they are paid for 975 but don't work more than 880. We meet weekly for catch-ups and flesh out the working hours for the next month based on business need. Means they never take 'leave' as such but take off time whenever they need by mutual agreement and always get paid. It's a great system (just spare a thought for your poor managers when they work on your leave entitlement and sheet - it took me a while to get my head around all that...).

I work 182 days a year - which basically equates to term times only. I keep a running spreadsheet of days worked - usually do a couple of days over but no more than that.

BUT in the term times I do a fair amount of international travel, when I can be doing very long days either actually getting there or starting early visiting production facilities and finishing late after entertaining customers. I also travel over weekends - although these count as working days. The fact that the job involves a lot of travel probably helps, to be honest, because no one expects me to be in one place all the time.

It would be hellish difficult for me to work part time any other way, because of the travel. And it does rely on me being willing to check for phone and e-mail messages when I am not officially working. I manage a small team, who seem to cope without too much difficulty. And I do have a very supportive boss.

Things that I find help:
-be chrystal clear about when you are, and are not working (I am equally clear that I am paid pro rata!)
-be prepared to keep up with e-mail when you are not working
-be prepared to discuss priorities if anyone asks you to add tasks to your targets

OK sorry, I didn't realise there could be so much variation!

I work as a physiotherapist in the NHS and there is an opportunity to swap my role from hospital based to community based. I have asked whether an annualised hours contract might be a possibility and atm it looks like it could be.

The basic hours of a whole time equivalent (wte) job are 37.5 per week. The job is currently 0.6 wte, but they're looking to cut it to 0.55 wte (20.6 hours per week) or even 0.5 wte (18.75 hours per week) which I would be happy with.

The purpose of this move would be to be able to fit in work around our ds's school hours and to be able to spend more time with them during school holidays. The job is lower down the pay scale, but I currently work 3 days a week and we pay nearly £9,000 a year in childcare so taking a cut in salary would be do-able if we could abolish our childcare costs (apart from maybe a couple of weeks during the long summer holidays).

Does anyones annualised hours contract really work this well?

I think you would have to check whether the NHS would cope with you working less in school holidays - I guess it would make appointment planning quite tricky if it is not agreed up front. (I may be showing my complete ignorance of how your job works here!)

For me, it has worked brilliantly and I have been working on this basis for 4 years now.

Neversaydie There's no way that it could possibly work in my current role where ther are always patients sat on the wards waiting for treatment, but in a community role working as part of a team who would rarely want to have annual leave during school holidays it has the potential to work well. I could do more hours when other members of the team are on annual leave during term time to cover their absence and bump up my hours.

I certainly wouldn't accept the job without being 100% sure about this kind of thing - we could end up far worse off if I did!

Interesting thread. I am going for an interview in a few weeks time after being out of work for a decade and would like to raise the issue of an annualised hours contract. I didn't realise there was such a thing until reading this thread.

The problem I see is that the employer will expect me to be 24/7 available even when I am not working - so in effect I will end up working unpaid hours. I have friends who work 4 days a week but end up taking phone calls and answering email on their day off and hence really work 4.5 days but only get paid 4. How do you stop that 'hours creep' happening?

The job I am going for is full time hours and I am happy to work 12 hours a day on busy days but need more days off than just holidays. The job would really suit an annualised hours contract so will lurk here if anyone has anymore tips.

Hi Iwish
I work as an AHP in the NHS. I work 2 days per week which is annualarised. Its great! i get paid less per week than the actual hours I work bur it evens out over the year as I get a salary every month and get all the school holidays. I think the NHS can privide this kind of contract as it is a large employer and this kind of family friendly principles instills loyalty in its employees. Goodness knows what will happen when the NHS is 'reorganised'!

Thanks Summer.

One thing that I've not figured out from reading the policy and I haven't seen my bosses yet to ask them, is whether you actually get an annual leave allowance, or do you just juggle all of your hours to provide your holiday time?

I just notify my employers which days I will be working to fulfil my required days. Other organisations may be a bit more demanding.

It is not just large, family friendly organisations who offer such arrangements by the way. I work for a medium-sized, privately-owned company which is also very male dominated. A high proportion of the (relatively few) women have flexible working arrangements. I think that they reckon that there are so few of us that they can afford to be flexible!