Extra hours

LegacyUser

I'm working for a small company. I've always liked my job, and have often worked extra hours here and there for free because I take pride in my work, and I feel the company does better for those few extra hours I've been putting in every week.

Here's the rub. Our boss recently decided that he would like all staff to put in a few extra hours per week for no extra pay. All well and good, until another staff member decided he/she didn't really want to play along, and has a multitude of excuses as to why he/she can't do the hours. It's funny, because up until now I didn't mind doing the extra hours, but now that it's compulsory, I rather resent doing them because not everyone is pulling their own weight!

I'm going to speak to my boss about it, but would like to hear other opinions on this. Is it worth getting annoyed over?

wirelessdude01

Why do extra hours for free all the time? This becomes the norm then.

LegacyUser

To be fair you've created this issue, if anything. Your colleague is right in their response. Your boss may appreciate what you do or take advantage of what you do. You've the latter. Would you work for free if he said here can you do few weeks for zero euro and no wage!? Essentially that's what you're doing over the space of a year if you add up regular unpaid hours of overtime! I wouldn't even do it with the promise of a glowing reference because there are no promises in business.

Hrududu

Your colleague shouldn't have to give any excuse. Asking someone to work for free on a regular basis is taking the piss. I understand people doing the odd few extra hours in busy times, but on a regular basis? No.

ManOfMystery

Your colleague is 100% right to not 'play along', as you put it.

I have done the odd bit of overtime for free when under pressure. I don't mind as it's a rare occurrence, I'm content in my job, it's a good firm to work for, and there are many other perks in my role. But if I was formally asked to do it on a regular basis .................. the answer would be a short and sharp 'No'. Why on earth would you? If they asked someone to work every Friday for free, it would be seen as a ridiculous request - so why is it any different if the hours are made up elsewhere? 

I think the problem here is that by doing work for free (essentially) for them for some time, you've normalised it, so their request isn't really much of a shock to you. When it comes to the workplace, we're all expendable and I find that you often don't get any thanks for putting in free hours. The company is there to make money for itself, not to glow in the pride of its workforce, so if they want you to do extra hours for them - then make sure you are paid accordingly.

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miamee

OP is this extra work to be ongoing or during a busy period/meeting a particular deadline? Ongoing would be an absolute no but if it's to meet an important order, deadline, etc. and a once off. I'd ask about time off in lieiu (sp?) instead or something else that he can offer in exchange for your time.

A2LUE42

I can understand the need to ask staff to do some extra hours. But to not be willing to pay them for the time, that is taking the p1$$, not to mind illegal.

LegacyUser

Absolutely agree with your colleague.

It's not your company and all the work you do for it you should be paid for. You created a really unhealthy precedent for other people you work with and work for and understandably your co-worker doesn't want to work for free.

Do your job to the best of your ability in the hours you are paid. No more, no less. If your boss wants you to work more he'll have to pay for it (as he presumably will profit from it).

You have destabilised your own workplace by undervaluing the work you do.

sashafierce

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lawred2

Your colleague is bang on.

You should never work for free unless it's for yourself.

Dixie Chick

I managed an office before where the culture was to work late and the MD liked to call about 7pm any given evening, would ask who was there and the next day give the cold shoulder to anyone who had not stayed on. It is a very bad habit to get into and I started doing this myself as I had been pulled on the fact that the staff can hardly be expected to stay on if management wasn't.
I think you colleague is right to not stay on. No employer should ask anyone to stay on late if not paying them. Especially if it is a regular occurence as it sounds like if everyone is needed to stay on, then another hire should be made.

LegacyUser

Wow OP, I could have written your post mmyself! I'm a school teacher, and since the recession, school teachers have been asked to work extra hours for no pay every week. They're called Croke Park hours, and essentially, every member of staff has to sit in one room and work on one project for those few hours. It really sucks, because you can't do your own classroom work like correcting copies etc. And it also sucks because on the days we do CP hours, we can't do extra curricular activities with kids after school. Some rifts have started because some people have excuses the whole time. And also, teachers are pissed off they have to sit in a room doing useless work, when they could be putting up displays in their classroom etc. It's like you said too....most teachers were happy to put in extra hours after school, but now they're being enforced, everyone's watching what each other is doing! It has really sucked the life out of the job, and teachers are starting to charge for extra curricular activities which was unheard of before CP! totally understand where you're coming from, you feel totally under-valued and disrespected, and as a result cannot be bothered to give anything extra. It's obvious there was an idiot in the DES who though it was a great idea, an idiot who has absolutely no idea about how schools operate!

Saying that, I'm very surprised to hear this happening in a private company! Any chance you and your colleagues could band together and tell your boss that these extra hours are not on?

Wanderer2010

Is this your first job OP? There is a tone of naivety in your post. Nothing wrong with taking pride in your work but stating that you don't mind doing the extra hours and that you feel that your extra hours "benefit the company"makes you wide open for exploitation. Companies exist for profit nothing else, and if you collapsed from exhaustion, it would be a simple "Bye" then replaced with someone else. NOBODY is irreplaceable.
Your co worker is 100% right. The occasional overtime is reasonable but doing it regularly for no extra money? Not on and outright slave labour. It will be tricky for you to suddenly claim you cant do extra hours after months of being available. I would tell your boss you recently joined a club and you cant commit to staying late until they get the message, maybe do it over the space of a month or two.
Chalk this down to experience and never offer to do unpaid OT again!

irishgirl19

OP you say you take pride in your work but how much do you value yourself at if you're willing to work for free.
People have to pick up their kids from creches, childminders etc.
Its not fair to expect someone to work for no pay

Ursus Horribilis

Years ago when I was in my first proper job, I took to working late in order to get things done. After a year or two, the business (it was a small one) started taking on other staff and were paying them more than I was getting. Even now I think I was good at my job, hard-working, got on with everyone and generally was the sort of employee that most people would like to have. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask for a pay rise and they came back with something derisory. It was a slap in the face but in hindsight, was the best thing that could ever have happened to me in terms of my career. It made me start looking for another job and led to much better things. It also was a timely lesson in how many employers view their employees. You might think you're a vital cog in the organisation but you're not. People come, people go, the place still keeps going.

I've a friend who worked in an office with two other people. Then one of the others left, leaving two of them to carry the work that three people had previously been kept busy with. Even though they asked their employer to replace the person who had left, they didn't. My friend left and they took on someone part time. In other words, they now had one and a half people doing the work of three. As far as I know, the last person of the three eventually fell ill and had to quit due to stress. I don't remember exactly what my friend told me at this stage but the behaviour of the employer in this case was far from exemplary.

The point I'm making here is that when it comes to your job, don't let it take over your life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking pride in your work - I think most people do - but you've also got to look after number one. Some people are lucky to have employers who recognise their hard work and reward it. Others, such as your employer, see it as an opportunity to pull a fast one. If I was one of your colleagues I would be absolutely raging. There is nothing wrong with occasionally working late if there's a deadline or something extraordinary that needs to be done. But if you can't get your work done within normal working hours, either you've a time management problem or you're understaffed. You sound like you're young and have no commitments outside of work. What about your colleagues who have family commitments? Hobbies? A life outside the office. It's not fair for you to be dragging them into a mess that you've inadvertently created. You might find as time goes on that people you work with aren't so fond of you. Would you blame them?

LegacyUser

Well I bit the bullet and had a word with my boss. I did feel gipped, and a bit silly too for having worked the extra hours previously. My boss has offered me a small pay rise which I'm happy with. It's nice to get the money, but what's more important to me is that I feel like I'm valued. I don't know what that means for the rest of the staff i.e. are they getting raises too? but to be honest, I couldn't give two hoots! I need to look out for number one, and my boss's stunt has taught me that.

Best of luck to anyone else in similar circumstances, maybe ye should ask for pay rises!

Ursus Horribilis

So you have come out of this smelling of roses while your colleagues will be working extra hours without pay? Classy, very classy. I hope for your sake they don't find out what stunt you pulled.

Ursus Horribilis

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

So you have come out of this smelling of roses while your colleagues will be working extra hours without pay? Classy, very classy. I hope for your sake they don't find out what stunt you pulled.

Stunt?

Pffft. What absolute nonsense. Sod the rest of them if they're too stupid to draw their own line in the sand and ask for it themselves.

Well handled OP. Don't pay any heed to this kind of rubbish.

Ursus Horribilis

Yes it's a stunt. The OP is the one who put the idea in the boss's head in the first place and dropped the lot of them in it. I don't automatically consider the colleagues to be stupid. Maybe they are. Or perhaps they are afraid they'll get on the bad side of the boss if they say no. The inference from the OP is that he/she will happily pocket the extra money and say nothing to their colleagues. Legally it's fine but morally it's a rotten thing to do to the people you work alongside.

Ursus Horribilis

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

Yes it's a stunt. The OP is the one who put the idea in the boss's head in the first place and dropped the lot of them in it. I don't automatically consider the colleagues to be stupid. Maybe they are. Or perhaps they are afraid they'll get on the bad side of the boss if they say no. The inference from the OP is that he/she will happily pocket the extra money and say nothing to their colleagues. Legally it's fine but morally it's a rotten thing to do to the people you work alongside.

It's perfectly reasonable for any salaried employee to put in a few extra hours as the OP was doing. You might not like it but especially in a small business that's just the way things are.

The boss making a decision that everyone should be prepared to do the same has SFA to do with the OP. That's the bosses decision and he/she may have very good reason to ask for it. The fact the OP was already doing it just meant it had no effect on them directly.

If the rest of his/her co-workers were all prepared to do the same, there's no change. The fact that ONE of the co-workers decided they weren't going to put in the few hours changed things for the OP. It would be stupid to let that slide.

It opened their eyes, they decided it wasn't good enough and that they should be compensated for putting more into it than that co-worker was prepared to do. Having the gumption to speak with the boss and get a payrise is between him/her and the boss and it's absolutely 100% correct to handle it that way.

The rest of them can do the same thing if they want and ask for payment or join in the objection and refuse to do the extra hours unpaid. That's completely up to them. There's no moral conundrum here.

You can't lay it at the OP's feet that he/she is responsible for anything but their own work and their own arrangements with their employer. That's not a stunt and there's NOTHING rotten about it. Don't be trying to make the OP feel bad about dealing with this exactly how they should have. That's a rotten thing to do.

The_Conductor

If its unpaid extra hours- and everyone is expected to them- how about a small paycut for those who elect not to do them? Doesn't have to be a massive paycut- but it should act as a disincentive to those who are acting the maggot- or if people genuinely don't want to work the extra (family reasons or whatever)- they can elect to take a small paycut in recognition of the fact that they'd rather the time off than agree the unpaid overtime.

It happens commonly- think its what the proposal is in the public sector at the moment- they have to do an extra half hour unpaid every day- or can take a 5% paycut to not work the unpaid half hour every day (forgive me if my reading of an article in the Irish Times on it last week got garbled somehow).

heroics

JayZeus wrote: »

It's perfectly reasonable for any salaried employee to put in a few extra hours as the OP was doing. You might not like it but especially in a small business that's just the way things are.

Just on this. It is not a problem if it is only on the odd occasion and voluntary. It is not perfectly reasonable if it is expected regularly. If all of your staff are expected to do extra unpaid hours every week then you do not have enough staff.

Just because it is a small company does not make that any different.

I have worked for small Irish companies before and it was expected that you would do more hours than salaried for. One of the reasons I would not go back to working for them. Current role I am salaried and get OT once I go over my 37.5 hour week. One benefit to them getting charged for the time is that they only ask you to do OT if it is really necessary not just for the sake of it.

heroics

The_Conductor wrote: »

If its unpaid extra hours- and everyone is expected to them- how about a small paycut for those who elect not to do them? Doesn't have to be a massive paycut- but it should act as a disincentive to those who are acting the maggot- or if people genuinely don't want to work the extra (family reasons or whatever)- they can elect to take a small paycut in recognition of the fact that they'd rather the time off than agree the unpaid overtime.

It happens commonly- think its what the proposal is in the public sector at the moment- they have to do an extra half hour unpaid every day- or can take a 5% paycut to not work the unpaid half hour every day (forgive me if my reading of an article in the Irish Times on it last week got garbled somehow).

I have never heard of this before. How is this common? Any references for this practice? Also how is anyone not agreeing to unpaid overtime acting the maggot?

The_Conductor

heroics wrote: »

I have never heard of this before. How is this common? Any references for this practice? Also how is anyone not agreeing to unpaid overtime acting the maggot?

Apparently the public sector agreed to do an extra half hour every day unpaid under the Lansdowne Road agreement- as a productivity measure to try and make up for the lack of recruitment during the downturn. It came up in the pay restoration talks last week and was widely reported on in the media. The proposal is simply- if people want to stop working the extra unpaid half hour- they take a flatrate 5% pay cut. Apparently the lower paid staff in particular are quite unhappy at it.

LegacyUser

Thank you for the advice everybody, but anyone who has an issue with what I've done, I couldn't care less! I've learnt a lot about how people operate, and I've learnt a lot about myself as a result of what happened in my job. Im very happy to know that my boss appreciates my work. That's the nub of it for me. It's very easy (as I found) to feel unappreciated at work, and it's crazy because I hadn't minded doing the hours before, but with the change, I felt I was being made a fool of! You feel like you're being taken for granted, and its a horrible feeling. The few extra euro that I'm going to be getting is nice, but to be honest if my boss had said to me 'Look we're going through a tough time, I really need you to row in, and I really appreciate everything you've done for the company', I would've been happy with that too. I didn't ask for a pay rise, because it's not about getting extra money. It's about feeling appreciated and valued.


That 5% pay cut for the public sector is mad I think! So you either do the hours, or you'll be getting a paycut for hours that essentially didn't exist before if I have that right? The government must be laughing up their sleeve! Just thinking too, all I had to do was go into my boss to sort out my issue, the public sector can hardly ring up The Government and say 'Hey that's not right'!' That sounds like a right pain!

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LegacyUser

So, you start the culture of working for free. Now your colleagues have to work for free and you get paid extra. Great for you, disaster for your colleagues.

I can only hope they find out about this and get pay rises too. Or leave the company that thinks people should work for free and leave you and your boss to it.

Ursus Horribilis

I'm not going to get into a public sector/private sector discussion here as they have a tendency to go off the rails and become very heated. I will say one thing though. If you "give" something to your employer and a precedent is established, you won't get your old terms back. That unpaid 30 minutes in the public sector is a classic example. You working all that extra time in your job is another. You're lucky your employer gave you that pay rise but don't fool yourself into thinking that's the norm in workplaces. It isn't. You've also changed the working conditions for your colleagues and they're now having to work longer hours. I get the impression you're young free and single. You wouldn't be half as smug if you were a parent juggling school and crèche schedules along with working.

LegacyUser

I didn't change the working conditions for me or my colleagues, my boss changed them.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts on this matter, I'm very happy with the outcome to my issue.

Mods can we please close this thread as I have resolved my issue? Thank you.