Overtime on reduced hours

Printer

My wife has been employed with the same company for around 12-13 years now, in the same role. We have 3 kids and after the first she requested reduced hours from 40 to 20.

She has never worked overtime but due to a recent company buy out they are generating more sales and she has been requested to do overtime.

We have not checked her contract but she has been told verbally that if she does overtime she will only get paid as single time until she hits the 40 hours worked point (matching the other employees). They say this is due to her being part time. In fact she is not part time. Part time work is considered to b 16 hours or less as far as i can find out. Therefore she is on reduced hours, not technically part time.

She has decided to simply not do overtime due to this, but it has me thinking so i thought i'd ask the question here.

Is this normal practise or are they taking advantage?

clairec79

Yes thats normal practice, until she gets over full time hours (whether thats 37.5/40/42 whatever is fulltime for that company) she gets her flat rate

elsien

Yep it's normal. I have also worked somewhere where if I did overtime over my full time hours it was paid at a lower rate than my usual hourly rate, the argument being that the overtime was to cover a lower level job than my own hence the reduced rate.
Needless to say, I declined their kind offer and they ended up shelling out silly money for agency staff instead. Their choice.

Printer

Okay thats fair enough.

She will decline their kind offer and spend her time better elsewhere!

lincroft1710

Unless an overtime rate is expressly set out in an employee's contract, overtime does not have to be paid above the rate for standard hours

getmore4less

They should give holiday accrual for extra hours.

If not that is a more reasonable reason to not do OT, just getting regular rate up to full time is reasonable.

If standard hours are 40 then anything less than that can be part time.

74jax

Printer wrote: »

Okay thats fair enough.

She will decline their kind offer and spend her time better elsewhere!

In a second job do you mean? It might be better to keep all the hours the one company maybe die to tax Holidays, time of etc.

TELLIT01

When I worked for DWP it was the same. Standard rate until the full 37 hours had been completed. Management didn't seem to understand why part time staff were reluctant to work overtime.
Where my wife works that is not the case. Once staff have worked their normal hours overtime rates kick in for all staff. The different rates don't seem fair to me. All staff working overtime are working beyond their normal week so the same rules should apply.

Xbigman

It might be worth checking your contract. When I dropped my hours from 40 to 34 some years ago I was still on a 40 hour contract but officially I had agreed a permanent shift pattern for 34 hours with pro rata pay and holidays. Therefore I wouldn't get any premium rate pay until I hit 40 hours.
When I dropped to 25.5 hours in January I was told it was a change of contract and now I do get premium rates of pay after 25.5. I was unaware of that until recently.
The change in policy was because under the old rules I had the right to return to 40 hours if I changed my mind. Under the new arrangement I cannot change from 25.5 without the company agreeing because these are now my contracted hours.



Darren

custardy

Printer wrote: »

My wife has been employed with the same company for around 12-13 years now, in the same role. We have 3 kids and after the first she requested reduced hours from 40 to 20.

She has never worked overtime but due to a recent company buy out they are generating more sales and she has been requested to do overtime.

We have not checked her contract but she has been told verbally that if she does overtime she will only get paid as single time until she hits the 40 hours worked point (matching the other employees). They say this is due to her being part time. In fact she is not part time. Part time work is considered to b 16 hours or less as far as i can find out. Therefore she is on reduced hours, not technically part time.

She has decided to simply not do overtime due to this, but it has me thinking so i thought i'd ask the question here.

Is this normal practise or are they taking advantage?

not sure why you find an issue with this?
Your wife would be no worse of than previously doing 40 hours.
IMHO,part time is less than the companies full time hours.

FYI exact same set up at ours. Anyone under 39 hours is paid @ standard rate until the hit 39 hours.

hcb42

I also don't know why there is a problem with this, otherwise all FTers would opt for PT and earn more money - your wife is not entitled to earn more than anyone doing 40 hours FT at flat rate. Completely normal contract term.