Working time directive

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

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I love overtime. I make some decent money from it which allows me to go on ridiculous holidays. Last month I did 104 hours OT, on top of my 40 hour week (it was a 5 week month however). I do this whilst I'm still young and have zero issues doing it, because I want the money and most of the time the OT is a doddle.

Now we have a new regional manager who flipped his lid and said this is unacceptable and we are to be limited to 48 hours a month.

Is there a way to opt out of this? I could hypothetically mange with less, but the way I do it is to go hardcore for a few weeks, then chill out for a few weeks for family time and whatnot. I would like to keep it this way.


Anyone in the know about this?
 
is he also using this to cut expenditure? (Ie do you get 1.5*pay overtime rate?).

Not sure how much you can do tbh, but you can opt out of the working time directive if the company asks /wants you to (and you sign it).
 
Cheers. We get 1.5x for Saturdays and call outs, 2.0x Sundays and bank holidays, and when we're on call on bank holidays we also get a day in lieu. So whilst it seems like ridiculous amounts of work, the perks make it worthwhile and the pay is good.
 
Yes you can opt out of the working time directive. I had to sign an opt out when I joined my current company (they can't force you to sign it but it was expected).
 
Depends on your contract and the company policies, really.
We had all of our OT and OOH facilities cut, with the exception of emergency standby and actual emergency callouts. The remuneration wasn't good to begin with, either (1.5 and 2x time in lieu respectively, rather than actual money) and we can't opt-out because they won't give us the work/time to do in the first place.
 
Diddums said:
Now we have a new regional manager who flipped his lid and said this is unacceptable and we are to be limited to 48 hours a month.
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Depending on type of work, etc. there might be a health and safety aspect to it - i.e. I know some jobs that involve a lot of driving they limit certain max hours a week, etc. as a company for responsibility/liability reasons even if the employee is ok with it and/or there is separate certification required for those doing more hours to cover the companies behind.
 
When you say it's a doddle, has the new manager not clocked onto the fact you're getting paid to do very little?

60hr weeks aren't that uncommon, particularly in the city, so I don't think the number of hours is the problem.
 
The EU WTD is to stop employers forcing employees to work too many hours. It sounds like you want to work more so EWD isn't relevant here. When a new manager comes in they will look at where the costs are highest and it seems that the overtime bill has caught his attention. He'll need to find non-overtime workers to cover the hours, unless there wasn't really enough work to do at these times anyway.
 
Sounds more like managing costs to me. If there are few of you banking overtime like that the cheaper option will be to just recruit someone else.
 
The_Abyss said:
Sounds more like managing costs to me. If there are few of you banking overtime like that the cheaper option will be to just recruit someone else.
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This, easiest way to reduce costs is to cut OT.

Also this has nothing to do with the EU WTD as that was to stop employers forcing employees into working more, by agreeing to do OT you are effectively 'opting out'.
 
We're all opting out of it in approximately 2 years :D good riddance to a bad law. Just glad I managed to work enough OT to get my deposit for my first house before they introduced it :cool:
 
just sounds like the boss is looking at the purse strings. its not a working time directive issue. the double time and a day in lou for callout on sundays, is that in your contract? if it is then there's not much the boss can do about that other than change the contracts but then that just opens a can of worms.
 
Tuppy_Glossop said:
The EU WTD is to stop employers forcing employees to work too many hours. It sounds like you want to work more so EWD isn't relevant here. When a new manager comes in they will look at where the costs are highest and it seems that the overtime bill has caught his attention. He'll need to find non-overtime workers to cover the hours, unless there wasn't really enough work to do at these times anyway.
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This, it's there to protect the employee from being exploited. I have a new HR lead where I work and my name is on the hit list because on average I've been working 1.5hours extra per week than WTD allows. That's fine I've said, give me the form and I'll opt out, problem solved. Just seems some live a tick box culture to me. Last year with the old HR lead my average weekly hours were way higher but nothing ever got mentioned to me then.
 
I suspect one of your new bosses measurements is cost reduction. Hitting overtime of that sort of level is a typical starting point.
 
It's one of those things; abuse OT and eventually they'll cotton on and reduce it.

He needs to track hours a bit more closely if he's only now figuring out (when he's seeing the OT bill).
 
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