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Paid Overtime or Not

sparkiemike

I am looking for some information on standard practice in the UK for a non-management role.

Having been self employed for over 20 year as an electrician working mainly on commercial and domestic work I have been offered a full time job in a new warehouse as facilities and maintenance technician.

I think it is great opportunity for me, as the company say there will be many opportunities for training/ CPD and the salary is good. Its a new role in the company.

The job description states that there will be a "requirement for out-of-hours working for site call-outs, emergency equipment repairs and scheduled maintenance requirements outside of operational hours".

The job ad said "possibility of over-time".

The standard contract that has been sent out states "Your normal working hours are set out in schedule 1. You may be required to vary your normal hours of attendance or to work additional hours from time to time, whether on weekdays, weekends or public holidays, according to the needs of the business. You will not be entitled to any additional remuneration for such additional hours or days worked"

I can't get a direct answer out of HR on the way overtime will work and what the rate will be. I am aware that in the UK there is no legal requirement for paid overtime. I am also OK with the idea that overtime will not be guaranteed but will be mandatory if asked (within reason). I suspect because this is a new role for the company the detail has not been worked out.

Because of my self-employment status I have no real experience of overtime other than the more I worked the more I earned. So my questions would be..

1. What is normal practice in the UK for non-management technician role in terms of overtime?

2. Would the detail of overtime (requirements and rate) be stated in the contract, job description or other policy.

I really want the job and am not sure how hard to push HR for a definitive answer.

Parents
  • +1

    To add to the other comments, my general experience has been that most companies have ben phasing out paid overtime, but the better companies offer some level of flexible working such that you can reclaim your hours.

    Consider also the legal implications; they need to respect the working time directive [Maximum weekly working hours: Overview - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)]. If they ask you to opt out of the 48 hour week, I'd personally run away as you are not getting paid for overtime.

    Additionally, you should do a calculation to make sure that you are always getting paid at least the minimum wage. Some sneaky companies will pay over the rate, but add extra hours such that you drop below. This would of course be illegal.

    Mark

  • 0 in reply to Mark Tickner
    Mark Tickner said:
    If they ask you to opt out of the 48 hour week

    Personally when my employer-before-last asked us each to sign a blanket opt out of this I not only refused to do so but made sure that, as engineering manager, that the engineering team fully understood the implications and their right to refuse to sign with no impact on their employment. (As a responsible manager I didn't, of course, go so far as advising them not to sign it, I just thought it very loudly!!)

    I was pretty cross with our parent company for even asking employees to sign this, particularly as we were working in a safety critical industry. (The company involved no longer exists in that form, so this is no reflection on any specific company operating today.)

    I do appreciate that it is a pain for employers, as if their employees don't sign an opt-out then the employer needs to retain evidence of the employees working hours so that they can demonstrate (if an issue arises) that each employee is working an average 48 hour week over a 17 week period. But then I'd hope on H&S grounds (and just good human management practice) that they were monitoring that anyway.

    Again, this helps with the time off in lieu discussion - the fact that the 48 hours is an average means that anyone can be asked to work longer one week, but they legally must (unless they've opted out) work shorter hours another week in that 17 week cycle. Not that 48 hours is an average technician working week in a medium-large company anyway.

    Overtime payments (and the wider issue of out of hours working) are a really challenging management issue in engineering generally, it is reasonable to expect that when the employer requires extra effort then the employee shouldn't be disadvantaged. And I get quite passionate about the fact that not paying overtime can hide the fact that the company (or individual projects within it) are actually under resourced / under budgeted. But equally you do want to encourage staff to manage their work within the time where possible, any of us who've managed staff on overtime will have come across the odd one or two who are really good at creating extra work for themselves. But that's all down to good management.

    Interesting subject,

    Andy

Reply
  • 0 in reply to Mark Tickner
    Mark Tickner said:
    If they ask you to opt out of the 48 hour week

    Personally when my employer-before-last asked us each to sign a blanket opt out of this I not only refused to do so but made sure that, as engineering manager, that the engineering team fully understood the implications and their right to refuse to sign with no impact on their employment. (As a responsible manager I didn't, of course, go so far as advising them not to sign it, I just thought it very loudly!!)

    I was pretty cross with our parent company for even asking employees to sign this, particularly as we were working in a safety critical industry. (The company involved no longer exists in that form, so this is no reflection on any specific company operating today.)

    I do appreciate that it is a pain for employers, as if their employees don't sign an opt-out then the employer needs to retain evidence of the employees working hours so that they can demonstrate (if an issue arises) that each employee is working an average 48 hour week over a 17 week period. But then I'd hope on H&S grounds (and just good human management practice) that they were monitoring that anyway.

    Again, this helps with the time off in lieu discussion - the fact that the 48 hours is an average means that anyone can be asked to work longer one week, but they legally must (unless they've opted out) work shorter hours another week in that 17 week cycle. Not that 48 hours is an average technician working week in a medium-large company anyway.

    Overtime payments (and the wider issue of out of hours working) are a really challenging management issue in engineering generally, it is reasonable to expect that when the employer requires extra effort then the employee shouldn't be disadvantaged. And I get quite passionate about the fact that not paying overtime can hide the fact that the company (or individual projects within it) are actually under resourced / under budgeted. But equally you do want to encourage staff to manage their work within the time where possible, any of us who've managed staff on overtime will have come across the odd one or two who are really good at creating extra work for themselves. But that's all down to good management.

    Interesting subject,

    Andy

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