contract query

oliel

if my employment contract says " on receiving reasonable notice may be required to work extra hours to meet business needs and will remunerated"  how do i know what reasonable notice is?

Brie

Basically this is something that you need to work out with your employer.  If you have a staff handbook anywhere (paper or online) there may be something in that to explain it.  And if you are not getting an answer from your manager then you may need to raise this with HR or your manager's manager or your union reg, should you have one.  

BUT - in my opinion.....A good manager will not ask on short notice unless it's an emergency and even then will accept if you have to say no.  Any manager should take into account if you have other responsibilities, like collecting children from school or going to cook your gran's tea every day.  A manager should know how many people are required to do the work and ensure there are enough people available and notified in advance to ensure things like holidays and sickness can be easily covered.  

There are some good points in the link below about excessive hours, like working more than 48 hours a week on an ongoing basis.  Some managers are badly trained (if trained at all) and it may be that they will be happy to be enlightened about the rules.  Pointing them to an appropriate website helps for the conversation to be neutral rather than emotional - something that happens too easily when you feel like you are having to confront someone, particularly if they are in a position more senior than you.

If you’re working too many hours – Advice Network

And ACAS is the standard reference for a lot of things to do with employment rights.

Understanding the Working Time Regulations - Working time rules - Acas

itsthelittlethings

How long is a piece of string?

EnPointe

in one workplaceI previously worked in, this was  normally  weeks  if not months in advance and widely publicised if there was an element of  compulsion to it ( e.g.  mobile phone launches, the build up to  winter / christmas peak  -  we  moved to a 4 on 4 off system and had  5 or 6 cycles  in November and December  for most depts which were 5 on 3 off  ( paid at overtime rates) but  mandated unless you had good flexi working  request type reasons 

in my NHS  hospital based jobs it was poorly managed - extra  hours  as over runs  as 'time owing ' that only the favourites go to to take - compare the ambulance service where over  runs were paid out  as over time in the next  pay period  ( as with all your variable elements)  or could be kept  for up to 3 months as time owing  

Undervalued

oliel said:

if my employment contract says " on receiving reasonable notice may be required to work extra hours to meet business needs and will remunerated"  how do i know what reasonable notice is?

To paraphrase a judge....

Reasonable notice is notice that is reasonable!

To be more serious it is a concept that is often unavoidable  but keeps lawyers in fees. Ultimately if it came to court a judge would look at both sides and decide whether an ordinary man (as found on the Clapham Omnibus!) would consider the employer's request to be reasonable.

Setting an absolute time frame is often too restrictive. What would happen if they were 30 seconds late giving notice? What about an hour late? And so on.

Sorry but there is no absolute answer.

itsthelittlethings

Is this a question because you’re looking at a contract that has this in, or because you’re wondering if the notice you have been given is reasonable?

MyRealNameToo

oliel said:

if my employment contract says " on receiving reasonable notice may be required to work extra hours to meet business needs and will remunerated"  how do i know what reasonable notice is?

Reasonable notice isnt a fixed thing, if you work mon-fri 9-5 as standard asking you to stay on for an extra 30 minutes at the end of your shift for a single day is likely to require less notice than if they instruct you to also come in on Saturday and Sunday for this week. The later would need more notice to be considered reasonable than the former. 

There is no legal definition of reasonable and so it generally comes down to a judgement call of what the average person would think. 

Unless you hold a unique position in the organisation most will first request volunteers before moving to mandatory overtime and in most places there are people wanting to earn a little extra or accrue more holiday. At times you get jobs (eg incident manager) or projects where overtime is reasonably foreseeable. If your job is to deal with Cat 1 incidents (eg company can no longer take payments, major regulatory breach discovered etc) then you know when a big one happens you are going to be doing what it takes and not clocking off at the end of your shift saying you'll try and get people access to their bank accounts on Monday when you're next on.