keitha
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Post by keitha on Jul 12, 2024 11:17:50 GMT
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/11/angela-rayner-right-to-switch-off-playground-ambulance/so the majority of employers don't like it. yes contacting staff in an emergency is something I'd accept, but surely you'd ring in an emergency. a couple of examples I had:- after 9PM on a Sunday night "XX ( senior Manager ) is coming to the office tomorrow all desks must be cleared of all paperwork etc by 9AM" 11PM on a Sunday night "there was an issue with YYY in Birmingham this weekend, I need you to rearrange all your work for Monday and report to .... at site by 8AM" That was a cracker Birmingham was at least 1.5 hours travel from home and my customers and support staff didn't start work till after 8. I got to site just after 9Am, the PM had decided the project was 2 men for a weekend, in the event they had done the smallest of 6 sites in 2 12 hour days and there were still issues. The PM insisted it would only take us a few hours to do the remaining we as we now had a team of 6 on site. At 6PM we still hadn't cleared the first site, PM booked us into a hotel and asked us to work till 9 then start again the next day, He was unhappy when I pointed out that none of us that had come in to help had a change of clothes. ended up driving home to grab some clothes, eventually with a final team of 8 we got the job done on the Friday. We had all been working 13-14 hour days all week and the PM had the cheek to ask us not to book any overtime or other expenses as his project budget was way over. another stupid thing management did was to instruct all field staff that Company phones must be in the boot whilst travelling, LOL then managers complained they couldn't speak to us whilst we were on the way to or travelling between sites. One even once phoned my personal mobile because my work mobile was engaged. I had a personal policy that only a few people knew my personal number and that the work phone ( with emails ) was turned off as I left the office on Friday and back on on Monday morning. If management want staff on call they they should pay for that
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rscal
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Post by rscal on Jul 12, 2024 11:25:15 GMT
'IoD' : Institute of Richards
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jul 12, 2024 11:28:29 GMT
I thought many employees have already have their phones switched off outside working hours. It’s also not difficult to silence a group chat after working hours.
It would be wrong if someone needs to pick up calls, text or email if they are not “on call” or standby
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bernythedolt
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Post by bernythedolt on Jul 12, 2024 12:10:50 GMT
It might go against the grain, but in this I think she's right.
Too many employers think they own their staff nowadays and feel they can demand their attention at any time, day, night or weekend. I declined to carry a work mobile for this reason (instead I gave my private number to colleagues I could trust). My employment contract was 41 hours per week, and during that time they got ruddy good value out of me, but outside of that I was determined that time was my own to enjoy.
Years ago, they asked me to go on call overnight and at weekends, to come in and fix the network at any time, all for the princely sum of £5. The rate hadn't been increased for probably 20 years. That's £5 per day, not per hour! I declined, saying they'd need to add an extra zero to even begin to interest me, and they were most put out: "But it's the government's on call rate for the Civil Service and others are doing it".
"Yes, because it's the only way they can increase their meagre wages. Sorry, but my private time with family is too precious to be disturbed for an insulting five quid".
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jul 12, 2024 12:16:41 GMT
It might go against the grain, but in this I think she's right. Too many employers think they own their staff nowadays and feel they can demand their attention at any time, day, night or weekend. I declined to carry a work mobile for this reason (instead I gave my private number to colleagues I could trust). My employment contract was 41 hours per week, and during that time they got ruddy good value out of me, but outside of that I was determined that time was my own to enjoy. Years ago, they asked me to go on call overnight and at weekends, to come in and fix the network at any time, all for the princely sum of £5. The rate hadn't been increased for probably 20 years. That's £5 per day, not per hour! I declined, saying they'd need to add an extra zero to even begin to interest me, and they were most put out: "But it's the government's on call rate for the Civil Service and others are doing it". "Yes, because it's the only way they can increase their meagre wages. Sorry, but my private time with family is too precious to be disturbed for an insulting five quid". Just question, if you picked up the call, do you get paid for the minutes you work as standard overtime working?
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Post by bracknellboy on Jul 12, 2024 12:29:47 GMT
I thought many employees have already have their phones switched off outside working hours. It’s also not difficult to silence a group chat after working hours. It would be wrong if someone needs to pick up calls, text or email if they are not “on call” or standby yeah, but then you may give your personal phone number to a boss 'cos you are going to be away and this time don't want disturbing but there is a known developing situation and he may need to call you. And then 2 years later when he is in a different (more senior role), can't get you on a Sunday on your work phone because you've switched it off, so he calls using the personal number you gave him 2 years ago. For something which for you really wasn't that important, and really wasn't so urgent it couldn't have been dealt with start of the week.
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bernythedolt
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Post by bernythedolt on Jul 12, 2024 12:33:36 GMT
Just question, if you picked up the call, do you get paid for the minutes you work as standard overtime working? Yes, but at my senior engineer grade it was at plain time, not time and a half. But it was never about the payment for actually dealing with the problem, it was all about the potential for being disturbed. I would have to spend every evening and every night on edge, just waiting for the phone to ring, knowing I'd be obliged to attend site. To me, it was simply not worth £5 a day to accept that extra daily anxiety. The CS had refused to put the rate up for so many years and expected to get away with it, because some just blindly went along with it, year after year. They were often the ones who burned out and had breakdowns and the like. I've always believed in - and luckily managed to maintain - a sensible work-life balance.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jul 12, 2024 13:26:10 GMT
for me that realisation came too late ( IMHO)
1999 we ( IT ) were severely restricted in the amount of leave we could take and we were offered payment for time that we couldn't take that financial year, also time off in lieu for working new years eve new years day and 2nd January.
come mid February I (amongst others ) was summoned to the bosses office to be told that management had decided that we had to take the accrued leave by the end of March or lose it. IE the promised payout was gone. I went back to my desk and checked how much Flexi time I was owed, and how much leave I had left. I then worked back from 31st March and found that I would need to go on leave the next day or the following day ( can't remember exactly ).
Filled in a leave sheet and went to see my immediate boss to get it signed off, he was of course annoyed "you have lots of projects to complete" my answer "pay me for the leave I'll lose and I'll work"
he tried but senior managers wouldn't agree so I went on leave for 5 weeks, during that time I realised what I fool I was working 45+ hours a week for 37 hours pay.
When I went back the first week I had project time scheduled for 50 hours and I told management there and then I was paid for 37 and that's what I would do except in emergencies or with an agreement for overtime or if I saw fit eg if another 1/2 hour on site would finish a job I'd do it rather than leaving and driving an hour or more back the next day to do the remaining tasks. I also refused to take my company mobile when I went on holiday and I didn't check emails at all. I would also leave my personal mobile in the room during the day .
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Post by bracknellboy on Jul 12, 2024 13:36:55 GMT
Well for the last 20+ years of my working life, I would frequently be burning both ends of the candle, work (from home) fairly frequently at weekends for substantive periods when necessary, very frequently/regularly do at least some work at weekends, frequently had to do calls at 8/9/10 or even 11pm in order to deal with people in the US, or occasionally the other extreme end of the day to deal with Australia; when on holiday do calls with higher management, likewise with some customers if it was particular periods of the year, and dip into emails to check for anything that was urgent.
I know of management who got into the deep brown stuff because they had missed a Sunday conf call that had been called by email late on the Saturday. I fell foul of a not dissimilar situation once.
Overtime pay ? What's that ?
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jul 12, 2024 13:57:17 GMT
The urgent call? I suppose you are working in a different sector which could make a difference about life or death. 😅
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Post by crabbyoldgit on Jul 13, 2024 5:01:06 GMT
I knew of a manager summonsed to a 0700am breakfast meeting next day in a midnight call, declined to attend on the basis it as a 6 hour drive and he had been up for 16 hrs already. He was not well thought of.
We had to to book summer leave a year in advance , but one guy had a wife in NHS who could not book leave longer than 6 months in advance , By the time she could book leave no summer leave was ever available to him , the max allowable members of staff had booked off. Leave was always an issue and time off in leu was a sick joke, it was never granted and was written off at the end of the leave year with often a nasty note on your appraisement, failed to properly manage time.
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Post by moonraker on Jul 13, 2024 9:34:50 GMT
I was a Government press officer, but never sought to work in a national press office because of the need to be "on call"(with an allowance) on certain evenings and weekends. I was a regional press officer, providing services to a number of Whitehall departments, including the Health and Safety Executive. It was suggested that the HSE press office should have our home telephone numbers (these were the days before mobiles) in the case of a major incident. One of my left-wing colleagues said that this merited an on-call allowance, others, including myself, weren't bothered, saying that we would like to know what was going on in our area ASAP.
On a couple of occasions there was a flap on over the weekend and I was asked to be at home to take media calls - not that were any. And c1995 we had an office mobile phone, a great brick of a thing with security encryption, that I took with me, securely wrapped in a plastic bag, on a wet cycle ride during one flap - again there were no calls.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jul 13, 2024 10:36:10 GMT
I knew of a manager summonsed to a 0700am breakfast meeting next day in a midnight call, declined to attend on the basis it as a 6 hour drive and he had been up for 16 hrs already. He was not well thought of. We had to to book summer leave a year in advance , but one guy had a wife in NHS who could not book leave longer than 6 months in advance , By the time she could book leave no summer leave was ever available to him , the max allowable members of staff had booked off. Leave was always an issue and time off in leu was a sick joke, it was never granted and was written off at the end of the leave year with often a nasty note on your appraisement, failed to properly manage time.
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