Office working hours

[IncyWincySpiderOnRepeat]

Hi, if you work in an office what hours do you work?

I work full time, am contracted 8.30am to 5pm but there is constant pressure to work longer hours... with meetings often being called for 5pm etc.

There is also the constant expectation of availability to take calls / answer emails in the evenings and at the weekends.

I mostly enjoy my job but am finding the expectation of regular extra hours and 24/7 availibilty difficult to manage and am starting to resent the loss of time with my DD (2.5 years).

I guess my question is whether this is a common issue? Or specific to my work place?

Thanks!

It's certainly similar where I work . There is a strong culture of presenteeism, particularly in management where it's considered a bad example to take time off.

We’re more relaxed about starting or leaving time, the focus is on getting the job done. Which will mean checking things at night often, but you can go see your kids in their nativity etc if you have everything covered.

Have you talked to your boss about it. Often there is a feeling there is a long hours culture but actually those who are more senior may be more relaxed about stuff than you think. Are you able to have a chat with her/him about it, positively......

I work office hours and, tbh, most of us do work over. However, we also tend to get time back when we want.

In my department, as long as the work is done, our actual hours arent montiored. When someone starts getting behind, thats when how many hours you do are watched.

So a meeting after finishing time, wouldn't bother me. But, also, if i had my kids that night (me and ex dh share their care 50:50) i would have no issue saying 'sorry, I cant make that. Can we do it at x time?'

8.15 to 5 for me. I always leave at 5 even if my boss gets grumpy, I'm already there for ages and I don't think it's unreasonable to want to eat with my kids. I work in IT.
I'd be willing to do a bit from home in the evenings in extremis but they don't provide remote working facilities.

Flexi time, no core hours.

I don’t work over my hours. Ever. If I liked the job and the people it would be different. But I do my hours and go home. This job isn’t worth my sanity!

My old job was in the City. I had a Blackberry and laptop and worked from home a lot. I was more dedicated to that as I enjoyed it more and would check my Blackberry in the evenings and on my commute.

9-5 in my department/company but the culture is much more. However, I try really hard to not bow to the pressure and am pretty strict with my own working hours and emphasise to my team that i judge on what you deliver, not when or how late you work to do it.

Essentially I am trying to promote a different culture, on the whole it has been successful this year, my team have performed well and I believe I am recognised as a high performer too, despite leaving at 4 regularly. I'm trying to promote leaving early = efficient!

Depends on how senior you are / how much you’re getting paid.

If you’re on £100k in the City I think it’s very normal to expect to work above and beyond your contracted hours.

If you’re an admin assistant on £18k I’d expect to be leaving at 5pm on the dot.

Chewbacca

Well done you.

Post on here the same point regularly,.......... the last big department I managed over time morphed into one packed with women maternity returners, part timers, workers from home and flexi workers. Most efficient bunch of people ever. Aim was to get everyone home out on time..........

0800 to 1630 with an hour for lunch

When I worked in a large law firm (City) all the lawyers (on a minimum of £65k, once qualified) worked whatever hours it took to get the job done.

All the secretaries / support staff ( earning much less) would leave bang on time, unless they had specifically been requested to do overtime.

When I used to work the company tended to have quite long hours. It was project based and when a deadline was coming up things had to be done. However the boss of my department was quite strict about all of us going home on time because the nature of our work meant that anything that we did when we were tired usually needed to be corrected the next day so it was more time efficient to come in a bit early for deadline stuff as that way it only needed to be worked on once. (We did statistical analysis.)

For people with DC or other commitments there was no expectation of long hours so long as the work was getting done, but it almost always worked out that at a busy time anyone who had to leave at a fixed time would need to come in a bit earlier and/or work through lunch.

I am contracted from 8.45 to 4.45 but do extra pretty much every day.

I do 8.45-5.15 each day, and pretty much stick to this, unless something major happened that needed sorting before I left. I never check my emails in the evening or anything, although I might glance through if I've been on holiday for a week, so there's no nasty surprises first thing!
I'm not very high up in the company though which might make a difference.

Officially 8/5 with 30 mins lunch.

In reality I have an hours lunch and often get slung out by the key holder wanting to lock up at 4.30. Anything after 4 is viewed as a late night here.

9-5.30. 95% of the times I'm out at 5.35 tops. The rest or 5% I'm staying because I didn't manage to finish on time which rarely happens as I organise my workload. However most of my colleagues stay there until 7 as this seems to be the "norm" and they are sooooo apreciated by management because they do so much overtime. Actually they can't fucking finish their job in 8 hours so end up there much longer.

Everyday before we leave we need to take any documents we have for our boss to sign. Every single day, at 5.35 she looks at me but as for now she only dared once to ask me "why are you leaving so early?" My reply was "Because I finish my duties in the time I'm contracted for". Fuck off you evil cow.

OP, we work so much ANYWAY. Half an hour or so everyday, 5 days a week, adds up to 130 hours a year!!!! So that's 3 weeks roughly UNPAID! Nope.

I work my contracted hours. Thankfully we pretty much all do the same

What I would do if you can is block out time after your official finishing time. That will help to stop people booking in meetings with you, as your calendar will show as busy. You could even put something in from 4-5 every day - a particular task or something like that, so your calendar shows busy.

I do it when I know I need to be away bang on time on a particular day, to stop meetings being booked in. It doesn't always work, some people just send meeting requests without checking availability, but it's definitely worth a try.

I don't mind doing a bit extra and generally do, especially as I work from home, but I would be annoyed if it became an expectation that I always worked over my hours.

Years ago I used to work 8-5 in a job and used to leave at 5 to collect my son from nursery. My boss used to mention it at every 1 2 1. Eventually I said "look if I came in at 9 and left at 6 you'd be saying nothing. Why does it bother you so much". He said it didn't, so I said well you're always mentioning it. He stopped mentioning it after that. Though I was only assessed as being a solid performer and not an outstanding one, the outstanding ones were the ones who stayed until silly o clock. Oh well.

9-5 with hour for lunch. Work in evenings when get home and weekends. Am a lawyer so you are at the beck and call of a client. They'll go elsewhere if you don't work the hours they want.

glorious, it doesn't have to be like you say with only junior staff being the ones not working v long hours - that's the mindset we have to change & senior managers have to lead by example. We also have to promote and recognise great performance, not long hours.

(Speaking as a senior manager in city banking environment by the way. I think law may be a law unto itself)

I work 830-430 with an hour for lunch and never work longer than I need to. Those hours are quite long enough for me and I don't get paid very much.

8am to 4pm with 30 minutes for lunch. I generally leave the office at around 3pm and do a couple of hours in the evening at home. Most people leave on time, which can be anything from 1.30pm - 8pm.

Contract is 9-5:30, but with a definite culture of presenteeism so usually in by 8:30. I also pick up emails/calls at home frequently, work as late as I feel necessary (midnight a few weeks ago) and am nominally on call if required (obvs I'd not go in after a few vinos ). However, I have direct reports who aren't paid to have the 'responsibility' of that level of requirement (altho they also have laptops and work phones) so I'd rather be the first port of call anyway instead of them since otherwise it's not fair

8-5 with an hour for lunch

I'm quite lucky they're flexible here too with the odd appointment or running late.

Occasionally work a bit of overtime but more often than not just do my core hours.