Need to talk to my Manager about excessive overtime

[Penguin13]

I will have been in my current job for 4 years in Jan. I started off on 4 days Mon-Thur 08.30 till 17.00 (with 1 hour lunch),and recently adjusted my hours to 09.00 till 14.30 Mon to Thurs (with 0.5 hour lunch) to fit in with the school run.

There have been a few teething problems with the new hours to say the least, down to none of my workload going elsewhere. I have been having to do a lot of overtime just to keep my head above water (well, i say 'above' realistically i am sinking) My MD is aware of this to some degree (the whole company is massively overstretched but mainly owing to their reluctance to spend any money and recruit) and for my first month on the new hours they actually paid me my previous rate to reflect this. Now they have told me to log my overtime hours and did pay me for 18 hours overtime for one week in Oct (they don't have to do this according to my contract). I did not sign a new contract but when my hours changed I did have a letter detailing my new hours/salary.

I want to have a discussion with my MD regarding the workload which is just not manageable without doing these excessive hours. My contract states that regarding hours of work that 'Notwithstanding this, you agree to work such additional hours as are necessary to perform and discharge your duties properly (whether or not at the Company's specific request) without receipt of any further remuneration'. Am I right in thinking that in spite of the above statement, it isn't right that my workload is such that my tasks cannot be completed in the alloted timeframe without regular overtime? I am in marketing if it makes a difference. I don't know if it makes any difference that I have childcare duties when I am not at work. My DH says just don't work above and beyond your contracted hours, but that is easy to say and not easy to do in reality and am not sure where I stand legally. To be frank, if it came to it we could survive for a while on one salary especially when DD2's nursery hours kick in in April though it is my strong preference to find another job before I leave. Well, actually I am looking to become a translator but am aware it will take some time to be able to build up to any kind of reasonable level of income.

Well done if you have made it this far! Anyone have any advice as to the best way to approach this? I want to say something along the lines of 'I agreed my new hours owing to childcare commitments but have been doing overtime since the new hours started. It will not be possible to continue doing more than 2-3 hours a week of overtime....and not sure what else.' I tend to get a bit flustered face to face so was thinking of putting it in an email and following up with a discussion but is it better for this to be a conversation? I urgently need to make a change as my mental health is really suffering (I was diagnosed with GAD shortly before returning to work and the recent pressure and lack of sleep owing to working till midnight, 1am, 2am...has been very detrimental)

Huge thanks in advance for any advice.

Ask for help in prioritising what needs to be done?

Thanks for replying Midgebabe. I promise to try not to be one of those OPs who puts roadblocks to all sensible suggestions but one of the issues is that I am managing a service where requests which come in are time sensitive as we have an SLA to meet, so the vast majority of what i do can't simply be put off till another day.

Presumably you put in a flexible working request to reduce your hours? Was there anything in your proposal outlining the logistics of how you thought it was manageable to reduce your hours?

Not exactly flowery, we are quite a small company and it happened to come at a time that we were reviewing team structure so it was more of a discussion orally. Apologies, accidental dripfeed that at the time I had a ft colleague working alongside me with 80% of her time dedicated to the project I manage and another colleague providing regular adhoc support. I also had someone producing the reports which are part of the service for me who could work full time when needed. She is now working on another project and has been replaced by someone who can work max 2 days. The f/t colleague left overnight in July (after my agreement was reached) and has not been replaced and the other colleague has only just been replaced by someone just out of uni working in their first office role. She is good but naturally will take a while to get up to speed.

So what would happen if you were off sick? Until you learn to say no , you won't get anywhere.

You are absolutely right midgebabe which is why I posted. Was just looking for advice really on how to approach the saying no and I wondering what legally I can say 'no' to given my contract wording. (Not sure if the mn classic of 'no is a complete sentence' works on bosses )

How replaceable are you? Guessing quite easy ?

The discussion needs to focus on when the problem will be fixed , after all you have been very accomodating, but you are worried that you won't always be able to pick up the extra work?

Based on your update it seems the problem wasn't necessarily caused by your drop in hours, but the subsequent team changes that have left you picking up the burden of work previously done by other colleagues. I'd focus on that in the conversation with your MD.

Well it's weird. On paper I am eminently replaceable, but they have had such a massive turnover of staff for a small team (there are 8 of us in total) that they are desperate to hold on to people.

Good idea of areas to focus on. I think I need to write it down and get my points clear before i have this discussion.

@Penguin13 I would hold fire on saying anything until you've gathered evidence of the problem.

For the next week, build a spreadsheet:

Column A : time in 15 min increments or a scale appropriate to your role
Column B - F : Working days (Mon thru Fri)

Fill in everything you do, against each day/time, including any permitted rest breaks. Indicate when you leave work each day. Indicate weekly tasking that you could not complete due to lack of time.

Book a meeting with your manager in a week's time, when you know you will have a full spreadsheet of data to give him the realistic view of what's happening.

It will enable you both to see the bottlenecks and your manager can help with priorities.

Good advice Daisychain and, am ashamed to admit, advice I have received before but not really followed. I do think that part of the issue of not knowing how to talk about it is not being able to concretely discuss the problem. My Manager is not the best but at least I will be armed with evidence to explain to her why things can't continue as they are.

Good advice, from @daisychain01