Regular Unpaid Overtime 2

[Welshbird]

The main production day at my work is on a Friday, and as we try to provide our products to clients as early as possible we have ended up with a culture where certain people stay late on a Friday evening to make sure all will be ready for dispatch on Monday.

Now this isn't shared around at all - the same people stay, and they do so out of a mixture of guilt and dedication I think. One member of staff has resigned (not completely due to this, but at least partly) and so we are now one guilt-ridden free overtimer short.

My boss expects me to fill in for her until we find more a more permanent solution.

So, in the last two weeks I have worked an extra 2.5 hours each Friday evening. Weekends have just had to be put back.

I guess my question is "How best do I broach this subject?" - I don't believe we can expect any one to do this long term; especially reasonably junior people who aren't paid too much anyway. It's a big part of the reason as to why the turnover of staff in this role is high.

And to be honest, I just don't want to do this every weekend. I'm actually ending up covering for someone in a different department to me as well.

Any advice gratefully received chaps. Before I get so miserable about it that I do summat daft and cause a P45 to be printed......

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[brand5880]

Willif,

I have run into similar issues as you and from the sounds of it have a similar culture at work. I have a few pieces of advice but not sure they are what you want to hear.

1) Your team members are professionals and should be treated as such.
2) Come up with a set schedule that fits your support hours.
3) Give perks where you can, be creative. For example, i could not get added cash for my guys that come in late or stay early. But i take them to lunch meetings when they finish projects and when they travel. I get the companies polos when they put in alot of hours. ETC.
4) Be Creative. I found out one of my guys wanted to drop off his kids from the baby sitter and another gets up a 6am (because he worked on a farm). I was able to schedule one to come in at 7am and the other to come in at 9am. this gave me coverage every day from 7 am to 6pm.
5)Its a new world, every employer is expecting more for less. Every one has to be expected to do there best to help with this, from the manager to the employees. Some time change can make this happen (Software, policy, etc)
6) Be a leader not a follower. I guess i am lucky, i have 1 on 1's with my manager weekly (Bi-weekly if we are busy). This would be some thing that we covered before it became a major issue.

Lastly, if you still have concerns you may want to check out

http://www.manager-tools.com/

.

 

[aarenot]

Sounds like the old salaried employee working extra hours for no pay deal has got you down. Here is the real way to look at it, so as not to feel you are not getting paid for the time.

Gross pay divided by total hours worked equals your hourly wage for the year. Add benefits to that, and you have your hourly wage plus benefits. Now you may not look at yourself as an hourly employee, but it does tell you what your compensation is per hour.
If you work more than 2080 hours per year, then subtract 2080 from your total hours, multiply that number by 1.5, and add the product to 2080, then divide your gross pay by this new number (total hours-2080*1.5+2080=X) ( Gross pay/X= pay rate). Then start looking for another job using this figure as your base hourly wage, plus benefits.

2580hrs-2080=500+1.5=750+2080=2830

$50,000/yr/2830=$17.67/hour

 

[jontout]

I've laughed at these posts, not because they're funny, far from it, but because it seems to be the norm!
My current boss refused to give me a payrise because I won't wear a tie. I've been with this company for 9 months and am the longest serving employee, he turns over staff at a rate of 3 a year and it's my turn to leave soon.
He's an arrogant, unskilled f**kwit, who treats his staff with comtempt. We don't get sick pay, pension or health insurace.
Still on the plus side, he does pay overtime, but it's classed as an expense (and is therefore not taxed) - and I think that's my get-out clause!

 

[LizSara]

Fee,

Have you tried, i'm off home now (at 1930 on a Friday), i'll be in around 1000 Monday, see you then?

when you're asked why you can just say you're making sure your hours are right for the week/month

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. ~ Nietzsche"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[JCreamerII]

jontout,

People don't realize how many people work for a small business run by an individual owner. On that overtime thing, in the US that illegal, that's IRS time & DOL as well. Somebody has an anvil hanging over their head.

Jim C.

 

[Welshbird]

Well, I've tried a plan F.

I start nagging the guys from 8:30am to get all of the data in, checked, matched, integrated and extracted at a reasonable time.

This is week 2 of me being a complete pain for the whole of a Friday, and everything was finished by 3pm. Last week it was 2:30pm.

So, I'm going home soon!

(And so far everyone is happy enough. The guys get less time to 'faff' but I don't see that as a bad thing...)

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[Welshbird]

(JCreamerII - my company employ 7500 people in total!)

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[JCreamerII]

willif,

I was thinking that jontout was working at a smaller business run by the owner. I've worked for a number of that type of individual before. I had job( construction prior to my IT career )and the guy who owned the construction company had myself and his nephew move a pile of dirt in the morning, south to north at the site. Shovels & wheel barrows, after lunch he wanted us to move it back. I don't mind hard work, but plain old busy work for no reason, he couldn't stand to see us stand around an do nothing. You can imagine what I told him, had to walk 10 miles home while my friend had to move the pile all by himself.

Jim C.

 

[IRLASCHU]

Hi,

I ran into the same problem. I spoke to the Director and explianed the amount of hours most be recognized and rewarded correctly and accurately to all staff. So I created a excel sheet for each staff in the department, informed them that for every hour, min etc they work, to enter daily into this sheet. After three months I went back to the Director with this info and then basicly justified the work being done, what was done and why overtime was done.

1) That overtime be paid
OR
2) Higher another person
3) Pay bonus for the overtime done at the end of the year.

I found that saying it to your manager never works even if it is justified but justifing it on paper will work most of the time.

 

[aarenot]

IRLASCHU,
That is assuming the manager does not already know what is going on, and the situation is not within their plan with no intention of upping compensations for the work load as that does not benefit them personally. Keeping the compensation down vs the work load is how they get evaluated on their performance in 95% of companies.
Now if you have a stupid, or ignorant manager who chooses to ignore the reality around them there are exceptions in that case. Ignorance however does not change the reality whether by choice, or stupidity.

 

[IRLASCHU]

Agreed aarenot! You're absolutely correct.
Unfortinatly there are managers who don't know what is going on and then there are those that don't care.