Compulsory Overtime Clause

hcb42

I think with most professional roles, it is ultimately not the no of hours, but a getting the job done approach. I find it most surprising that it is paid!

depends how much you want to rock the boat really. But the grass is probably no greener elsewhere in my exp.

patman99

I'm not sure that it is legal to actually make you opt-out of the WTD as part of your contract.

I think if I were forced into signing an opt-out as part of the contract of employ, the next day I would hand-in a 3-month notice that I intended to opt back in.

getmore4less

If it is the sort of thing that can be done by contractors would a one off hit it hard get things back on track.

Any process changes that could make the place more efficient.

Does all the work really need to be done, a review and priority analysis where some stuff has to wait can result in it not being that important after all.

tripled

I've since found out that the employees of this company can't do overtime in the evenings as each employee is limited in the amount of work they can do (in their role) in a day by the regulator (volume as opposed to hours, and they generally achieve that). Clients are waiting on results of that work, but in any event prioritisation, use of contracters, employing more staff, etc. are decisions taken higher up the food chain.

There has been a lacklustre response to voluntary overtime and I suspect with summer holidays and (hopefully) sunny weekends coming up. Rather than putting the employer putting their hand in their pocket to incentise people to come in, it seems they have reached for the stick instead.

Apparently the employer is drawing up a rota, employees are expected to be available (they will only find out if they're actually wanted 24-48hrs before) or find cover, and it's tough cheese if you already have plans and no-one will swap.

Given no-one seems to be able to confirm one way or the other the meaning of the clause, I will take away that it is badly worded and open to interpretation. I have recommended that the employee opt back in to the WTD and await the outcome of the rota, hopefully it won't be overly onerous and any inconvenient shifts can be swapped. If it is... we'll just have to see how the employer responds when they get told "no"

getmore4less

I would have a dig around the regulations to see if the volume of work per day also has a per week limit.

Whats the lead time for work?
Whats the rate of arrival?
What's the nominal or regulated turnaround time?

if there is a back log it should be possible to plan this ahead if you know that a worker is limited to X units a day.

WT won't help a lot other than restrict it to 1 weeked day average.
is that enough to cover the back log.

What might be better than an ad hoc weekend "on call" rota is a proper move to 7 day working depends how sharable the work is.

getmore4less

tripled wrote: »

I've since found out that the employees of this company can't do overtime in the evenings as each employee is limited in the amount of work they can do (in their role) in a day by the regulator (volume as opposed to hours, and they generally achieve that). Clients are waiting on results of that work, but in any event prioritisation, use of contracters, employing more staff, etc. are decisions taken higher up the food chain.

As there is a daily volume limit it will be possible to work out the number of 5 day full time(accounting for holiday and sick) equivilents are needed, if this is way out from the numbers employed it is clear indication to the workers and management they need to sort it out properly.

It helps the case when everyone say no we don't want to be doing 6 days a week, you can say to those higher up look it is clear you are deliberatly running understaffed for the volume of work allowed by the regulators.

Another angle is if there are any people that have left that may be interested.

eg. left to have kids that would be interested in part time hours to fit in with child care.

footyguy

Another +1 for this term not appearing to be unusual in many contracts of employment.

I am assuming this is just one of many terms, and not the full contract of employment. If correct, the questions some others may be asking are probably covered elsewhere in the contract.

All I would say is that I don't think this term alone would exclude you from the protection the working time directive affords you.