Leaving work on time frowned upon. Mod warning post 1

Wanderer2010

This is a very interesting thread and has shown the many different viewpoints. BreadnButtha, its safe to say you would be my idea of an absolute nightmare of an employer. You represent everything I dislike about employers- expecting workers to be on their game 200% of the time despite family commitments or personal problems occasionally affecting performance, expecting workers to do above and beyond their hours, basically expecting workers to see a job as a challenge to see how far and fast they can climb that ladder. I respect your position and I don't think people should be trying to change your mind as that's who you are, you are not going to change and if you want to run your business that way you are of course entitled to.
Me, on the other hand, just see my job as paycheque, nothing else. I have learned a long time ago that doing extra work has the side effect of your bosses expecting the same workload all the time and others taking advantage of you. I know by now I'm definitely not a "company" person and my life is all the better for it- I have more energy in the evenings and at weekends to spend time with my family and my hobbies. My money will probably never go any higher because I have refused to go for promotions and I probably only do an extra hour of overtime maybe 4 times a year and my bosses expect nothing more from me now, but I have enough to have a decent lifestyle and I will never ever regret not working enough on my deathbed. OP, my advice is to stick it out for the year and than if they keep expecting more maybe look around for another job. You need to find out if you are a drone worker like me or are you a company man and then adjust your life to suit it. Good luck...

1eg0a3xv7b82of

BreadnBuddha wrote: »

In sales, it's simple enough. Perform against targets and you are demonstrating your value, to varying degrees. If you miss one target (revenue), you still have other targets and ways to show you're worth the cost of keeping you employed (margin/product mix/business development or growth related activity). The latter is only possible when enough people ARE bringing in enough money to make continuation of the business possible. It's one of the most unforgiving roles where inconsistent or poor performance is concerned. So, the primary motivator in sales is ALWAYS to keep your job first, with whatever floats your boat coming afterwards.

Not all companies can afford or would be prepared to bend to the personal motivations of their employees. Why should they? If you have a guy who wants to bring his kids to school on his way to work, or take time off at short notice because his child is sick and he can't get a minder, or work longer days and take more days off during school holidays, that's not always going to be possible depending on what your core business needs may be from the guy filling that position. No matter what else you would do, a guy who values that flexibility above his pay and benefits package will always feel you're a bad employer because you don't value his work life balance.

I might sympathise on a personal level with the guy, but that would be put completely aside when I was back at my desk doing my job if it was quite apparent that the business would ultimately suffer if it tried to accommodate his individual motivations in life. If they're not compatible with a particular role, in a particular business, that's his problem. Not his co-workers, employers or customers. There are some careers which people just shouldn't pursue if they have expectations that can't be met in the workplaces and business cultures they'll encounter.

Falling into a job or picking it just because it's local, easy to do or because someone else says it's a great career are common. Look at all of those graduating from University recently, those who had to make a choice when they were largely inexperienced children ticking boxes on their CAO/CAS application forms. They've ended up entering an employment market in which they're for the most part having to take jobs doing things they'd never have wanted to, before the reality of working life and past decisions kicked in.

That's hardly the fault of managers in the companies they apply to work for, or of the owners of those businesses. Yet just a few years later, despite having plenty of chances to learn how to adapt and progress, to create better opportunities for themselves, a great number just settle into a routine of grumbling on a daily basis or else they skit from one job to the next.

Experience in the workplace itself and then in managing a workforce of any size is enough to enable most people to get a feel for whether or not a particular employee wants to do well in the job. If they do the things they need to, show they're trying to improve their own lot in life through work instead of complaining and making unrealistic demands, any business that's profitable enough to be able to do something is likely to WANT to do something to keep that employee.

If you're a low margin, high cost, borderline profitable business, operating at the arse end of the market, aspirations of providing a cracking workplace for your employees will not become reality. Some workplaces are destined to be crap places to work because of where they draw the line on what they'll do for you. Just the same as some people are destined to be lousy employees because of what they are prepared to do for you.

It's like complaining that a donkey you bought won't run as fast as a champion race horse, no matter how hard you beat it with a stick, or how many carrots you dangle in front of it's face.

I'll be damned if I'm going to buy donkeys and waste my time trying to use the stick and the carrots, when what I need are race horses, and our business success means we can afford to pay for them, or replace them when they stop winning races.

The problem with most managers is that they have been promoted because they wont threaten the managers who have promoted them, and they are too ignorant and arrogant to understand this.

i have regularly seen the best guy overlooked for promotion due to the above thinking.

Azalea

CruelCoin wrote: »

You think that someone 3 weeks in is fully up to speed?

They're being paid full-whack while underperforming for the first period of their employment.

I don't consider a few free hours to be at all unreasonable given that you're (for the time being) not giving material benefit to the company in line with what you're being paid.

If i'm paying you 12 an hour, i expect 12 an hours' work. If you're giving me less than that, while saying "screw you" then yeah, you'd not last long.

Who said anything about anyone saying "screw you"?

Reduce pay for new hires so, instead of lying to them that they're getting paid such-and-such an hour when they're not. Punishing them for being new and not knowing the ropes yet... unreal.

I just watched A Christmas Carol - some of the stuff being said on this thread is exactly like some of the lines attributed to auld Ebeneezer.

BreadnBuddha

Azalea wrote: »

Who said anything about anyone saying "screw you"?

Reduce pay for new hires so, instead of lying to them that they're getting paid such-and-such an hour when they're not. Punishing them for being new and not knowing the ropes yet... unreal.

I just watched A Christmas Carol - some of the stuff being said on this thread is exactly like some of the lines attributed to auld Ebeneezer.

I haven't thought about what I earn per hour in almost 20 years.

Isn't it gas that employees criticise business operators for being focused on their money first, often at the expense of employees, therefore they're terrible people.

Meanwhile, the employees focus on their money first, often at the expense of the business, therefore they're clever and won't be taken for fools and whatnot.

It will always be the same.

peasant

BreadnBuddha wrote: »

Meanwhile, the employees focus on their money first, often at the expense of the business, therefore they're clever and won't be taken for fools and whatnot.

As a sales focused person you will understand this:

The only thing that employees have to sell is themselves and their work, so they have to sell it well.

After all, you don't hand out your goods for free either

Letree

BreadnBuddha wrote: »

So in your case, working long days and putting in the extra effort, any reasonable employer will value that and WANT to help you where they can by being flexible. .

That's heavily weighted in favour of the employer. If you expect the worker to do 5 or so hours a week on top of their contracted hours and then get maybe an extra day off once in a blue moon if their kid is sick.

Even an extra hour a day works out and about 28 working days in the year.

BreadnBuddha

Russell Nutty Socialism wrote: »

The problem with most managers is that they have been promoted because they wont threaten the managers who have promoted them, and they are too ignorant and arrogant to understand this.

i have regularly seen the best guy overlooked for promotion due to the above thinking.

Ignorant and arrogant?

I don't know where you work, but that's rarely the case. I understand that is the normal misperception amongst the general workforce in many places but it's rarely true.

The ignorance and arrogance is more appropriately identified in the employees who think their manager should be someone akin to a shop steward. You want someone who will watch out for your best interests foremost. That's what you want. That's both understandable and ridiculous at the same time.

That's not what a business needs and demands from a manager. A team leader, maybe. A guy to rally the troops and get them working well because he's popular and likeable and not perceived as a total company man, even if he is exactly that.

But the manager above him is accountable to the business as his first priority, not to the employees. That's a black and white requirement. It's the job.

If you can show that the business needs are your first priority, you're unlikely to have conflict in relation to matters of which the general workforce would be aware with other managers, hence the reason you think the way you do about the selected individuals.

The popular choice, the ones you might think were the best for the job were passed over? So what. Dog wags tail, not viceversa.

BreadnBuddha

peasant wrote: »

As a sales focused person you will understand this:

The only thing that employees have to sell is themselves and their work, so they have to sell it well.

After all, you don't hand out your goods for free either

Indeed. But nobody will keep buying a common, generic component, often affected by quality control and mean time between failure issues, sometimes affecting entire batches, ocasionally not available for delivery, sometimes suffering an early life failure or total malfunction when a supplier in another market makes a better item for almost half the price.

Value matters most when it comes to staffing costs. Not values. Value. That's what most employee contributors here don't appreciate.

KomradeBishop

People are not commodities ffs... This thread goes a long way towards showing why everybody should be able to have union representation, to protect themselves from crappy employers - when an employer steals your time, they're effectively stealing money from you as well (it's known as wage theft); if you work beyond normal hours, work out your wage per hour, and see how much you're being screwed by (if you have difficulty with that, min wage is €8.65ph - making 1 hour extra a day, almost 3 grand a year stolen from you).

If an employer expects someone to work beyond normal working hours, that's something to put in the contract, and negotiate payment over with the employee - not something to automatically expect of a worker - not in the contract, not the employee's problem. Peoples personal lives come first, not their bloody job - they're not workhorses.

Unreal that people expect employee's to work out of hours for free - and think they can try and justify that.

BreadnBuddha

KomradeBishop wrote: »

People are not commodities ffs... This thread goes a long way towards showing why everybody should be able to have union representation, to protect themselves from crappy employers - when an employer steals your time, they're effectively stealing money from you as well (it's known as wage theft); if you work beyond normal hours, work out your wage per hour, and see how much you're being screwed by (if you have difficulty with that, min wage is €8.65ph - making 1 hour extra a day, almost 3 grand a year stolen from you).

If an employer expects someone to work beyond normal working hours, that's something to put in the contract, and negotiate payment over with the employee - not something to automatically expect of a worker - not in the contract, not the employee's problem. Peoples personal lives come first, not their bloody job - they're not workhorses.

Unreal that people expect employee's to work out of hours for free - and think they can try and justify that.

In our case, it's in the contract. Iron clad. Up to 160 hours per annum for sales team members. Most of the time, the year ends at 100-130 hours per person. Hourly rates are not used here. You're on a base salary plus commission and bonuses, take it or leave it basis.

For production, they're paid for pre-approved overtime when we're at high output already, but that's rarely used the rest of the year as there's too much of an incentive for them to slow production and slip into overtime before holidays to boost their paycheck. We have good guys there, but their pay is lower of course, so the temptation to fiddle overtime had proven troublesome in the past.

We get what we need and we pay fairly, considerably higher than minimum wage in every instance. Minimum wage isn't enough and we don't use any excuses to try paying it. They know it, and they know when they stay late that it's genuinely appreciated because everyone knows they're not doing it for money alone. If what they do at those times generates profit, they get something out of it in the CP bonus.

Money is not used as an incentive here. You're paid your salary and you get the job done. Anything extra that goes into it benefits everyone equally. It works and we have an impressively low rate of attrition. If 4 welders stay late to catch up on a delayed delivery but 2 have to leave on time, the 2 that leave will be first to offer to stay late or come in early next time. A sense of camaraderie prevails, only because we don't put up with naysayers, whingers and 'me fein-ers'. Same goes for the office work end of things.

KomradeBishop

If you're keeping people on overtime, you should be paying people on an hourly basis for that time, and at a higher hourly rate than regular hours, not fixing it as a precondition to a base salary (even the US has laws mandating this - though here and the EU in general is more sketchy).

If that were followed, and if the total regular + overtime hours were not excessive, I don't really see a problem with that in the circumstances you portray.

screamer

When you're salary paid there is no obertime pay unless it's overtime requested by your employer. That's been my experience from small 3 person offuces to the largest multi nationals. If you have to stay on an hour a day to get your work done that's your problem.

Businesses are there to make money not to make friends and TBH with the huge sense of entitlement that I have experienced managing in companies I think that the day of the employee in Ireland is fast coming to an end. In a few years people will be taken on on a self employed basis only. In a lot of industries it's already the case.

0ph0rce0

I think most people don't have a problem doing the old hour here and there that's life.

But when a company expects you to this this everyday, every week because of more work and because they are too cheap to hire more resources and don't pay you for it or up your salary after time it's taking the piss. It's not self entitlement. Happens a lot were you don't move up the ladder or pay scale and get stuck doing it.

Your a moron if you do it.

Just move on to a better job that does pay you.

Wanderer78

MPFGLB wrote: »

I agree that capitalism has major problems that need addressing as you point out.But its going to be very difficult when nearly half the earths population (in China & India alone) have grasped our model (that we have benefited from for over 100 years) ...They want what we have and who can blame them as we have not been intelligent and equitable in sharing.

very good points there. i think its gonna be very interesting to see how this situation develops as both of these countries have public banking systems(signature). i think their economic policies and systems might just develop slightly differently to ours but their heavy reliance on fossil fuels is a worry. yup, none of this will come easy to us but i think we have no choice but to change or we will eventually self destruct.

im just glad that there are people like ellen brown(signature) out there, doing their utmost, helping to develop and educate people about alternative, pro human, pro environmental economic systems, in which, a few quid can still be made from the system. my personal favourite is obviously public banking but im sure there are plenty of other such systems out there. feel free to inform me of others.

screamer wrote: »

When you're salary paid there is no obertime pay unless it's overtime requested by your employer. That's been my experience from small 3 person offuces to the largest multi nationals. If you have to stay on an hour a day to get your work done that's your problem.

Businesses are there to make money not to make friends and TBH with the huge sense of entitlement that I have experienced managing in companies I think that the day of the employee in Ireland is fast coming to an end. In a few years people will be taken on on a self employed basis only. In a lot of industries it's already the case.

....and this is good for society and mankind in general?

is happiness and/or the pursuit of, an entitlement nowadays? if so, where do i sign up?:rolleyes:

fuel for thought:

http://itsourmoney.podbean.com/e/it%E2%80%99s-our-money-with-ellen-brown-%E2%80%93-it%E2%80%99s-nature%E2%80%99s-way-of-telling-you-%E2%80%93-091615/

in this podcast, jamie brown explains how biological systems show signs of immaturity when they are in direct competition but when they start cooperating they have matured and the system as a whole benefits. she goes on the explain, our economic systems are showing similar signs, i.e. we re showing signs of immaturity in the development of our species by having economic systems that are in direct competition. we need to start cooperating asap so that our system as a whole will benefit or theres a possibility the system as a whole will eventually collapse. interesting theory in which i think shes right. enjoy

I disagree almost completely with what breadnbuddha is saying as regards the specific thread question on regular unpaid overtime, but think that their posts and the clarity behind them are a brilliant read and well worth considering rather than personalising.

A different perspective on where open market pressures meet Irish cultural employment norms has made the thread far more interesting than if nobody were to defend or try to explain management position in this instance.

screamer

Entitlement spans much more than employees unwilling to work a few minutes overtime now and again. It's rife amongst employees and I truly believe employers will get fed up having to bend over backwards for such employees.
Gone are the days of the job for life and soon gone will be the days of permanent employee positions instead it will be self employed contract basis where there are no entitlements, holiday pay, redundancy etc. As I've said it's already the norm in many sectors and many more will follow.

Wanderer78

screamer wrote: »

Entitlement spans much more than employees unwilling to work a few minutes overtime now and again. It's rife amongst employees and I truly believe employers are getting fed up having to bend over backwards for such employees.
Gone are the days of the job for life and soon gone will be the days of permanent employee positions instead it will be contract basis where there are no entitlements, holiday pay etc. As I've said it's already the norm in many sectors and many more will follow.

....again, and this is good for society as a whole?

screamer

Wanderer78 wrote: »

....again, and this is good for society as a whole?

Well it's better than moving jobs to the next low cost country......... which has happened over and over again mostly for cost reasons.

I agree it's not good but seriously if the employee population becomes so difficult with trade unionist mentalities even amongst private sector workers then companies will start exploring other options.

screamer

screamer wrote: »

Entitlement spans much more than employees unwilling to work a few minutes overtime now and again. It's rife amongst employees and I truly believe employers will get fed up having to bend over backwards for such employees.
Gone are the days of the job for life and soon gone will be the days of permanent employee positions instead it will be self employed contract basis where there are no entitlements, holiday pay, redundancy etc. As I've said it's already the norm in many sectors and many more will follow.

I'm......not sure that this is the direction that European society is headed.

When I say I'm not sure, I'm actually very sure indeed that your statement is completely incorrect, just to be clear.

Cross post with wandered: society as a whole is an amorphous blob of contradictions and an appeal to same is probably too incoherent to tie to any specific question while detaining credibility.

I think most students of economic history would probably take issue with capitalism:bad tho.

Wanderer78

screamer wrote: »

Well it's better than moving jobs to the next low cost country......... which has happened over and over again mostly for cost reasons.

fair point but you might be missing my point(s). our financial and political elites have us believe there are no alternatives to our current economic and financial systems but there actually are. my personal favourite is public banking. our current systems are pro wealth creation but anti human and anti environmental. public banking is a pro human, pro environmental system that is capable of creating wealth but in a more sustainable positive way than our current systems. i personally feel the op is not the problem but indeed our economic systems are at fault. apologies, im probably doing a bad job of explaining this. ellen brown et al do a far better job. check them out

desertcircus

If I was hiring salespeople, I'd be unimpressed if any of them valued their own time and skills so cheaply that they were willing to work extra hours unpaid rather than trust their performance to do the talking. If you can't even convince me your own time is worth good money, how on earth are you going to sell my product?

To be serious for a moment, though: the OP should probably work a little past the 4:30 mark and come in a little earlier than the 8:00 mark for a few days. It's not the end of the world if the staff are getting in early to be able to hit the ground running at eight, and if they're staying for ten or fifteen minutes to close off their work for the day - it's not ideal, but it's still pretty manageable, and it's probably a compromise worth making if it means the bosses are looking at you in a positive light. If the place is jammed and already flat-out at 7:45, and by 5:00 everyone's still at their desks with no sign that they're getting ready to go home, then you're in a pretty unpleasant workplace and may want to get out of there. There's a huge difference between "sticking around to clean up the last few bits and pieces" and "working unpaid overtime for ten hours a week".

Also: the workplace described by Breadnbuddha sounds incredibly unpleasant. Your company fired people who exceeded their targets? What kind of Mickey Mouse nonsense is that? They're called targets for a reason - you told those people to get X sales each month, and when they got X plus 20% you fired them for doing it wrong? Someone made a complete balls of their job, but it's not the sales staff - the person setting those targets and the HR staff who agreed to the firings are all culpable. That's objectively a bloody terrible way to run a company. You told these people to do a specific job, then instead of rewarding them for doing it extremely well, you fired them for not doing it the way you wanted it done - which you completely failed to account for in the targets you set those staff. And hearing that a staff member was let go for trying to organise union membership is utterly unacceptable - just wildly wrong, and sailing extremely close to a failure of basic ethics, not to mention the fact that they almost certainly had to lie about the reasons because telling the truth would have led to a lawsuit in about fifteen seconds.

catbear

The main issue is keeping unscheduled personal time available for the employer. I'm not against the odd time but there must always be some recognition in some way for any time given above the contract agreement.

Otherwise you've no comeback. You're manager might say you'll go far in the company if you do unpaid overtime but then when that manager leaves you're back to square one with a new manager. All that time given of unrecorded work was completely wasted.

It's not worth it. Anywhere I've seen this stay late expectation I've also seen the most amount of burnout and high staff turnover. It's bad economics. If your work can't be measured, then it can't be managed.

the_pen_turner

on a slightly different side to this.
an employer can expect 8 hours work for 8 hours pay , that's fair .
but I believe that those hours belong to the boss . they can use them how they wish (within job description and laws etc)
if the boss isn't organised , or doesn't have materieals ,or has you working in an area where someone else working is making your work almost imposible .
these are not my problem.

I have spent many a day waiting for materials . one day I sat in the van all day because I had to wait for the other trades to finish so that I could do an hour work when they finished.

did I expect to get paid. of course I did

LegacyUser

I've worked with a couple of managers who shared the same viewpoint as BreadnBuddha. In my youth, I dismissed them as corporate lackeys and ignored everything they said. I concentrated on just doing enough (while doing a good job) and union activism. I was promoted once but not to a senior level. About four years ago, I got pulled up by a boss who said that I would be passed over and passed out if I continued in my attitude. That got me thinking and I started to wonder if I was the problem, rather than the bosses and management.

So I slowly started to change my ways. I started asking for additional tasks and undertook project work. I also invested in further education relevant to the job. I stopped being a sounding board (via my shop-steward role) for whining co-workers who were too lazy or unmotivated to see that they were the problem, not the employer. I have been promoted twice since then and am finally getting some recognition of my abilities after 17 years with the organisation.

I no longer share the sense of entitlement that many people in this thread (and on pages like Rabble, Broadsheet etc do). I've taken ownership of my career and finally realise that yes, I can do something about it. I no longer have the infantile view re bosses = evil, all workers = good

I just wish I had listened to views like BreadnBuddha's earlier in my career.

davo10

There is a clear polarisation of views on this thread, on the one hand the employee who wants to be paid for every minute worked and on the other the employers/mangers who want employees who are willing to go that extra bit.

Most owners and managers have at some stage done the extra grafting to achieve promotion and the benefits that come with it. They have shown initiative and proved their value to the company, it is a mindset which makes it difficult to understand the clock watchers, the ones that will do the bare minimum yet feel under valued and resent those who want to get on. It is horses for courses, some are leaders, some are followers but you can't have one without the other.

I often get slammed on these threads for my views with the generic "I'd hate to work for you" or "what a nightmare boss you must be" but the fact is I must be doing something right as my core staff have been with me for years and have shared in the success of our business. Saying that, I would let the op go instantly. If the op hasn't got enough sense to realise that the first few weeks are often the most important to impress the employer with the three A's, then there is no point in continuing, it is best to let the op and start with a new employee.

BreadnBuddha

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

Why can't some people here as an employer see that you get what you pay for.

I might get slated for this but if pay for an hour of a prostitutes time. I get an hour strictly. Nothing more nothing less because that's what you pay for.

She isn't going to turn up earlier or stay late to put in extra effort for no money .

Would you not pick a more realistic example if you want to participate in the serious discussion underway?

In terms of getting what you pay for, that's a double edged sword.

If I pay more than the minimum wage the role and training/experience requires, I expect more than minimum in return.

Rightly so.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime

BreadnBuddha wrote: »

Would you not pick a more realistic example if you want to participate in the serious discussion underway?

In terms of getting what you pay for, that's a double edged sword.

If I pay more than the minimum wage the role and training/experience requires, I expect more than minimum in return.

Rightly so.

That is a realistic situation. You'd have to be a million miles away to say it doesn't happen.

You're paying for time.

If you are looking for staff and post the job description as monday to friday 9 - 5 why should anyone be expected to start at 8:30 ? Or finish at 5:30 or even 6.

And from an employee point of view if i see a description like that then i expect to go by 9 - 5 monday to Friday. Its how people arrange their lives from dropping their kids to school, appointments and so on.

davo10

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime wrote: »

Why can't some people here as an employer see that you get what you pay for.

I might get slated for this but if pay for an hour of a prostitutes time. I get an hour strictly. Nothing more nothing less because that's what you pay for.

She isn't going to turn up earlier or stay late to put in extra effort for no money .

Does s(he) throw you out mid thrust when th time is up or give you an extra minute or two to finish? If you were thrown out mid thrust, wouldn't you be at least a little disappointed?

1eg0a3xv7b82of

Regret1993 wrote: »

I've worked with a couple of managers who shared the same viewpoint as BreadnBuddha. In my youth, I dismissed them as corporate lackeys and ignored everything they said. I concentrated on just doing enough (while doing a good job) and union activism. I was promoted once but not to a senior level. About four years ago, I got pulled up by a boss who said that I would be passed over and passed out if I continued in my attitude. That got me thinking and I started to wonder if I was the problem, rather than the bosses and management.

So I slowly started to change my ways. I started asking for additional tasks and undertook project work. I also invested in further education relevant to the job. I stopped being a sounding board (via my shop-steward role) for whining co-workers who were too lazy or unmotivated to see that they were the problem, not the employer. I have been promoted twice since then and am finally getting some recognition of my abilities after 17 years with the organisation.

I no longer share the sense of entitlement that many people in this thread (and on pages like Rabble, Broadsheet etc do). I've taken ownership of my career and finally realise that yes, I can do something about it. I no longer have the infantile view re bosses = evil, all workers = good

I just wish I had listened to views like BreadnBuddha's earlier in my career.

Good for you, you used a well traveled road to promotion - the union martyr who makes life hell for the employers and then crosses sides to make life hell for the union.

1eg0a3xv7b82of

BreadnBuddha wrote: »

Would you not pick a more realistic example if you want to participate in the serious discussion underway?

In terms of getting what you pay for, that's a double edged sword.

If I pay more than the minimum wage the role and training/experience requires, I expect more than minimum in return.

Rightly so.

what you should do is out source your whole production to China. Think of the fun you would have lording it over those people.