Working Time Regulations and all that jazz.. expectation of out-of-hours work (on call!)

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Ok here we go.. this is probably more of a vent than anything but..

I currently work in a role that in-part helps support an external vendor's secure platform for file/media storage. We used to have a system provided by another vendor where they provided 24/7 first-line support which was great. But we ditched them and in an attempt at penny-pinch went with another vendor that did not provide first-line support. So we set-up an internal company distro and phone number whereas users (from our company, and external) can get hold of us. This worked ok for a bit, but then COVID struck and our user base went from approx 4,000 to 20,000+ users. Since then we've been struggling, and a lot of this stuff can be urgent (working with creative people, reviewers that only get access to stuff for a limited amount of time like 48hrs so when they decide to login and view and have issues, they panic and it's "omg I need this resolved now!!11" ). More and more, we're getting emails and contact at the weekend and there's literally me, and my boss and someone else both in the US.

I work in the media industry so out-of-hours work is not uncommon, it's part of it. I accept that. But it should be the exception, not the rule for the sake of it. And the fact we are now the first-line for a platform where it can be urgent for users to access seems very unfair, if said user is trying to access say on a Sunday morning. My American boss's attitude is that "it's not that much work" or "it's part of the job" and yes he is a complete HR nightmare walking and a moron to boot. His work is his life, unfortunately.

We are in the process of moving to another system and I was hopeful that this would provide first-line support, and the whole problem would go away, but I've just discovered that it has not been discussed as part of our contract, and just got off a very rage-inducing call where my boss seemed happy to let things continue as-is. And downplayed the whole idea. Yeah.. no.

I have already spoken to HR about this, thought I had the support of our IT team that are project-managing the transition, but that seems to have ebbed away quickly. So, tldr what sort of protections should I have in my contract, or maybe in the Working Time Regulation? I have obviously signed the working time waiver though I'm sure my HR can help but as soon as they open a can of worms...

 

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Looks like I needed to update my ignore list

But yeah thanks guys. The VP in the IT team wasn't on the call yesterday so my first step is to make it clear this is his responsibility as well. He needs to be arguing for a better support model from his IT pov, so it's not just me telling my boss I don't want to do it. My dotted line manager here in the UK (very normal, nice guy) has already mentioned to the IT VP's boss (CIO) that we're stretched too thin and this method of support is not fair. So I do have a few avenues to go down.

What does your contract say and how is it written with regard to the grey areas. You know the bits like "...would be expected to work out of hours from time to time to support the business..." etc etc.
Is it overtime? When does it become overtime? How is it paid?

Salaried, no overtime, work outside business hours from time to time. The usual covering all bases.

* If its your personal phone, then tell them no more calls and they will be providing a company phone. You will only use that phone for company business (so its not a taxable perk).

Work phone. I actually dual SIM it and use it as my personal. Carrying two phones was tedious.

* Ask to see the SLA's (service level agreement) with the new vendor. IT don't care because they're not the ones picking up the slack. Make them care by having them added to the circle of people called.

It seems - as far as I'm concerned - the vendor's SLA is fairly useless for this argument. We're talking about first point of contact when people can't login and currently that means we'll get hassled first.

If you want to stick with it, then a proper support model and SLA needs to be drawn up and agreed to by all parties ("you" most importantly). This will likely constitute a change in your original job, so you will have some power to negotiate it - but I appreciate you appear to be dealing with morons.

Yeah. My main argument needs to be that this is a change in role, but I'm not seeing much wording in my contract that would support this. My contract does say "support the business with blah blah" but it doesn't suggest much with regards to hours.

Like I say, I'm pursuing via going around my boss's back to get the IT people to force this discussion. I do want to stay at the company, so dragging my boss to HR and causing a huge fuss is not going to be massively useful at this stage. I have mentioned it to my HR rep here and she fully supports me. But they're not doing anything yet.

 

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This is some of the worst advice I have seen across this entire forum.
Whats the wage got to do with it? Nothing by the way is the answer.

He's just trolling and is now on my ignore list. I suggest you do the same so he doesn't successfully derail another thread.

Frankly I dont think this is going to get resolved in the way you hope for. I suspect this will be in an identical fashion in 1 year from now.

I suspect not, but it depends on what I can get our IT team to push for. If they can argue this is an "IT problem" rather than just a "business problem" to resolve we'd be getting somewhere. I am pretty fed up of my boss overall and am doing a lot of things at the moment to internally change roles and get me out of supporting this particular platform. (or any other). I finish a part-time course in March that the company paid for, that is training me towards that goal. But, I am as always at a disadvantage because my department is based in the US so making sure the "right" people know what I'm doing is hard.

Taking it back to initial post, I would be speaking to HR about my working time and working hours, get these logged and confirmed over a period of time to show how much extra time you are working and what responsibilities should stop need additional resource/removing from you.

Yep. My boss is such a muppet when we were arguing about it he was like "oh well if you want to log all of the out of hours stuff feel free"... The support distro goes to him as well so he knows full well how much we get on average. The bit that makes it hard to quantify is that sometimes there will be nothing say at the weekend, or sometimes there will be 6-12 emails. It really depends on what's going on in the business.

 

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It sounds like you are dealing with American managers who are infamously psychopathic and ignorant of UK working practices and laws.

Indeed. Mine in particular. His argument is basically that he gets called all the time out of hours (which I don't doubt) but he actively encourages it.. for example telling people to call him any hour of the day and night. His work is his life, and not in a positive way.

I think the key things are that this is customer-facing so should be formalised not just ad-hoc and it seems like the frequency of calls are an issue now, very different to sometimes being called by a colleague or manager etc.

Yep exactly. Trying to make sure he/they understand my complaint is not out of hours work, as that is very much part of our industry (dealing with creatives, deadlines, technology etc.). Even down to simple things like replying quickly to that email at 9pm whilst sat in front of the telly.. because it'll save you waiting another 24hrs for a resolution/whatever. But as said, being technically "on call" is way different from this and he is just not understanding that.