Overtime and expenses advice urgently needed

Scorpio22

Hi,

My contract states my hours are 9-5:30 you may be required to work additional hours depending on the requirement of your work and at the discretion of management. where possible you will be notified in advance and arrangements can be put in place.

Firstly I was always told the company does not pay overtime however staff can take time back if they have to work overtime.

I recently started a new role in a company I've been working for the last couple of years an aspect of my role is to attend 2 networking events a month. When I discussed this aspect and went through my contract I asked if I would be paid expenses for parking & tolls and also if I could pick my own events I was told yes. I have attended a 1-2 events a month if sometimes not more and the last few I did not pick however I got paid expenses where applicable. Now my manager as said that expenses are not covered for networking events. Also a few months ago they made a comment in passing saying I basically shouldnt be taking time back for attending events

I have had to leave my house at 6:30am to go to events on the other side of town and then go to work (I was taking time back like finishing at 4) but now it seems more and more its expected that I work til 5:30 which is an 11 hour day!

Can my employer expect me to go to events outside working hours and not pay me expenses?

Any advice would be much appreciated

Many thanks

Peregrinus

He can expect anything he likes. Whether he'll get it is another matter.

From what you say, at the time you were offered this role and agreed to take it on, you explicitly asked if your expenses for attending networking events would be covered, and you were told that they would. In light of that, I think your employer's expectation that you would attend these events and not claim the expenses is wholly unrealistic.

As for the hours involved, this is less clear. In general, the further up a management hierarchy that you move, the less you are expected to be counting the hours. It would be pretty common for people to be flying the flag on behalf of the company at industry and/or networking events before or after the usual work hours, and still working the usual hours at the office, and the employer's expectation that you would do this isn't necesarily out of line with what happens generally. Plus, this isn't something you asked about at the time you took on the role. So I think your case is a bit weaker here.

Elmpark

What Peregrinus said. You should be able to claim expenses in line with the organisation's expenses policy.

Also, you don't get paid to travel to work, so the time you leave the house isn't really relevant, unless you're being expected to travel really significant distances from your normal place of work. Presumably you don't roll out of the house at 9 am every day to start work at 9 am. Technically, you could probably start a fight about it, but why bother? Its not a great attitude to take from the perspective of career progression, so it'd probably only shooting yourself in the foot.