Extension of working hours - How much is too much?
Discussion
In the last six months my workload has increased massively and even with my best efforts at time management I'm struggling to finish everything within the standard working day.
Our 'office hours' are 8.30am-5.00pm - I'm regularly at my desk minutes after 8am and still there at 5.30. Most days I take no more than fifteen minutes to eat lunch and usually do this at my desk with emails and things open.
On top of this, my role has grown to include air travel across the UK. This means I'm often flying out on a Sunday evening in order to get a 'full day at the office' on Monday and when I come back, I usually land around 6pm and then have a 45 minute drive home.
My senior colleagues and directors seem to work very long hours - I regularly receive emails at 7am (In fact, here at 7:39am typing this, I've received 3 emails from the director I work closest with) and at weekends. I've even found myself sending emails from my phone in the evening just to reply to things as they come in and keep on top of it, and also when I'm on annual leave - Picking up my work phone just to 'check' things and reply to the important bits. Again, my line manager has been sending me emails this week when he is actually on annual leave.
I enjoy the progression in my career, but I'm not sure how normal it is to have to work these extra hours to get the job done. On the one hand, no one is specifically asking me to work out of hours... but on the other hand, without this extra time I wouldn't finish everything given to me. And that looks like I'm not managing my workload.
Can anyone offer any (friendly?) advice on this. I'm not in a particularly senior position in my opinion (salary in the sub £35k bracket) and I'm wondering if this is extra work is just standard for those in this position and higher.
Our 'office hours' are 8.30am-5.00pm - I'm regularly at my desk minutes after 8am and still there at 5.30. Most days I take no more than fifteen minutes to eat lunch and usually do this at my desk with emails and things open.
On top of this, my role has grown to include air travel across the UK. This means I'm often flying out on a Sunday evening in order to get a 'full day at the office' on Monday and when I come back, I usually land around 6pm and then have a 45 minute drive home.
My senior colleagues and directors seem to work very long hours - I regularly receive emails at 7am (In fact, here at 7:39am typing this, I've received 3 emails from the director I work closest with) and at weekends. I've even found myself sending emails from my phone in the evening just to reply to things as they come in and keep on top of it, and also when I'm on annual leave - Picking up my work phone just to 'check' things and reply to the important bits. Again, my line manager has been sending me emails this week when he is actually on annual leave.
I enjoy the progression in my career, but I'm not sure how normal it is to have to work these extra hours to get the job done. On the one hand, no one is specifically asking me to work out of hours... but on the other hand, without this extra time I wouldn't finish everything given to me. And that looks like I'm not managing my workload.
Can anyone offer any (friendly?) advice on this. I'm not in a particularly senior position in my opinion (salary in the sub £35k bracket) and I'm wondering if this is extra work is just standard for those in this position and higher.
So manage your workload. No need to put it negatively to people, just clear, evidence based discussion about how long tasks are likely to take, and the time in a given day. I tend to find that putting known tasks into the calendar gives a nice graphic representation of a manically busy person 
If I'm flying ad hoc somewhere short haul irregularly then I'd be OK with doing this on a weekend, but if it's regular travel for the business I'd want to do that on works time. My home life is more important to me.
I also have my work email on my phone, and find it easier to quickly flick into it, deal with something and then I'm back to whatever it was I was doing. I do this because I work across 3-4 different timezones. If it was just 1 timezone, I probably would wait until I got to work to deal with 'stuff'
My exception would be internal comms, but we use Slack for anything that just needs quickly communicating. Email is busy enough without a load of internal chatter adding to it.
Sometimes money is justified as a way to compensate you missing your time doing non work stuff, and that can work for some people. For others, it's something they're told as just how life is and grow to accept. For many other people, the money doesnt come close to compensating the time they could be spending somewhere else. Where you draw your line will be up to you.
For me, I dont like doing anything that takes longer than 5 minutes after 6pm. If it looks like it's going to get in depth, or if I'm outside of work and doing an activity, visiting friends, going out for dinner or anything other than being in a vegetative state on the sofa...It can wait til the next day
I also have my work email on my phone, and find it easier to quickly flick into it, deal with something and then I'm back to whatever it was I was doing. I do this because I work across 3-4 different timezones. If it was just 1 timezone, I probably would wait until I got to work to deal with 'stuff'
My exception would be internal comms, but we use Slack for anything that just needs quickly communicating. Email is busy enough without a load of internal chatter adding to it.
Sometimes money is justified as a way to compensate you missing your time doing non work stuff, and that can work for some people. For others, it's something they're told as just how life is and grow to accept. For many other people, the money doesnt come close to compensating the time they could be spending somewhere else. Where you draw your line will be up to you.
For me, I dont like doing anything that takes longer than 5 minutes after 6pm. If it looks like it's going to get in depth, or if I'm outside of work and doing an activity, visiting friends, going out for dinner or anything other than being in a vegetative state on the sofa...It can wait til the next day
Email is the death of productivity by distraction. Only have outlook open when you are dealing with your correspondence, if you are working on something else close it. If you need it for meeting reminders then print your calendar for the day and close Outlook.
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses...
Use the rules function in Outlook to highlight important email senders, and to differentiate between CC and TO emails. You don’t need to read the CC emails and I bet your boss doesn’t read them either. If he does he’s a control freak and you would be better off out.
Speaking of which, why do you need to respond to your boss outside your normal hours? If it’s that urgent he should call you or he should wait. You’ll have to wean him off this habit (which is all it is) over time, but start by limiting how quickly you respond and during which hours.
Any meetings only need to be 45 minutes, not the full hour that Outlook defaults to. You'll cover as much ground and get the decisions needed in less time, you'll have time to be punctual for your next one (and a piss too) and time to hit a few emails if you need to.
Travelling the night before to get a “full day” has been the norm (for me at least) for years. You’ll be more knackered if you leave at 3am.
You don’t mention whether you have a partner or children, but if you don’t and think you have it bad, wait till they come along. You need to crack this now.
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses...
Use the rules function in Outlook to highlight important email senders, and to differentiate between CC and TO emails. You don’t need to read the CC emails and I bet your boss doesn’t read them either. If he does he’s a control freak and you would be better off out.
Speaking of which, why do you need to respond to your boss outside your normal hours? If it’s that urgent he should call you or he should wait. You’ll have to wean him off this habit (which is all it is) over time, but start by limiting how quickly you respond and during which hours.
Any meetings only need to be 45 minutes, not the full hour that Outlook defaults to. You'll cover as much ground and get the decisions needed in less time, you'll have time to be punctual for your next one (and a piss too) and time to hit a few emails if you need to.
Travelling the night before to get a “full day” has been the norm (for me at least) for years. You’ll be more knackered if you leave at 3am.
You don’t mention whether you have a partner or children, but if you don’t and think you have it bad, wait till they come along. You need to crack this now.
The more you respond to things out of hours, the more you'll be expected to respond to things out of hours and I suspect your more senior colleagues have already been caught up in the trap. If you start saying you're too busy, they may well realise that they can't keep sending you work because it won't get done. On the other hand, if you want to progress, your more senior colleagues will view this as a necessity (I won't comment on whether I think this is right or wrong). Do you want to progress or are you happy just doing your 8:30-5 job?
AyBee said:
The more you respond to things out of hours, the more you'll be expected to respond to things out of hours and I suspect your more senior colleagues have already been caught up in the trap. If you start saying you're too busy, they may well realise that they can't keep sending you work because it won't get done. On the other hand, if you want to progress, your more senior colleagues will view this as a necessity (I won't comment on whether I think this is right or wrong). Do you want to progress or are you happy just doing your 8:30-5 job?
This.However, I think there is an expectation to work out of hours.
I would start by not replying to non-critical E-mails out of your normal office hours.
If something comes up and it takes an hour if your evening to resolve, claim that as overtime.
If you cannot claim it as overtime, don't do it until the next business day.
When you are at home, TURN OFF YOUR WORK PHONE.
Do not check E-mails
Do not give work colleagues your personal phone "just in case".
I made this mistake and was getting calls almost daily from an old boss of mine outside of office hours.
(I left in the end, he was a knob.)
Is there a way to be more efficient with your workload?
For example set aside 8am till 9am every morning to go through and action any of the emails from the "evening" ?
Sometimes you can find yourself being busy but not really getting much done.
Progression is good but when you are on Annual leave for example you should be on Annual leave! Otherwise you will slowly die inside and end up a workaholic.
As suggested use some Outlook rules to filter the CC messages to another folder and you can go through and action those as necessary.
While I think getting in at 8 and going home at 5:30 is fair enough I don't think you should be continuing to work in your free time at home for nothing.
There's career progression and just being a mug and trust me being a mug gets you nowhere.
A few years ago I was in a similar situation. Contracted hours were 8.30-4.30, but I'd get in around 8am and not leave until gone 6pm. Relatively to others in the department I was on a lower salary, but often felt I did more work, and had more knowledge than them purely because I had worked there for a long time.
It didn't help that the senior management were all based overseas, so when they came over to the UK office would stay in a hotel for a few weeks. With nothing else to do they were always in the office working ridiculous hours, or sending emails in the evening where they would expect an instant reply. On one occasion my manager was stuck in the office until 11pm running through some budget figures. Finally got a chance to leave and all the way home his phone kept ringing, didn't answer until he got home, and ended up being dragged back to the office for a couple more hours
For me it got to the point where I'd had enough, and combined with the feelings of resentment (I was getting paid less than other people who did much less work, and was refused a pay rise) led to me leaving. At the time it was a very hard decision as I'd been at the company for over 10 years, but looking back it was the best decision ever. I'm now at a company where I'm paid what I feel is a fair salary, am making much more progress, and although the contracted hours are slightly longer, I am rarely at the office outside of them
With regards to the OP, listen to what others have said on here (turn off the work phone in the evenings, etc), and perhaps try to be more assertive with your work hours. Where I worked it sometimes felt like work was being created for the sake of it, or unnecessary deadlines were set because someone wanted to get the task done early. A few people would push back and challenge this, and were able to get out the door on time (not easy though).
Ultimately, don't let the culture of the business control your life. I don't know what type of work you're in, so it might not be straightforward or easy to look for another job, but don't rule it out as it could be a good opportunity to progress and probably earn more.
It didn't help that the senior management were all based overseas, so when they came over to the UK office would stay in a hotel for a few weeks. With nothing else to do they were always in the office working ridiculous hours, or sending emails in the evening where they would expect an instant reply. On one occasion my manager was stuck in the office until 11pm running through some budget figures. Finally got a chance to leave and all the way home his phone kept ringing, didn't answer until he got home, and ended up being dragged back to the office for a couple more hours
For me it got to the point where I'd had enough, and combined with the feelings of resentment (I was getting paid less than other people who did much less work, and was refused a pay rise) led to me leaving. At the time it was a very hard decision as I'd been at the company for over 10 years, but looking back it was the best decision ever. I'm now at a company where I'm paid what I feel is a fair salary, am making much more progress, and although the contracted hours are slightly longer, I am rarely at the office outside of them
With regards to the OP, listen to what others have said on here (turn off the work phone in the evenings, etc), and perhaps try to be more assertive with your work hours. Where I worked it sometimes felt like work was being created for the sake of it, or unnecessary deadlines were set because someone wanted to get the task done early. A few people would push back and challenge this, and were able to get out the door on time (not easy though).
Ultimately, don't let the culture of the business control your life. I don't know what type of work you're in, so it might not be straightforward or easy to look for another job, but don't rule it out as it could be a good opportunity to progress and probably earn more.
Once had a gaffer whose stated management style was to give people more and more to do. When /if they had absorbed it, give them some more, and continue until, either they hit the wall and cracked up, or dropped an almighty clanger due to overwork. Thankfully the idiot got the heave ho, but not before quite a few were found at their desks sobbing due to overwork.
Slightly left field suggestion as was once in a similar position, one example regularly fielding calls late into the evening from folks out on USA West Coast, it was still their afternoon, but they knew the Swedes would have gone home 4pm prompt local time, so before their West Coast day had started, and they knew who from the Swedish office would answer regardless. Just one example. USA East coast weren't so bad, Australia was a pain, usually got them before breakfast.
So, assuming reports of needing help or overload get the usual "cocking a deaf 'un" response, is everything that lands on your plate something that really has to get done, or is there stuff that is in the 'well maybe it's nice to have this, maybe not that immediately relevant today, but we've been generating this report since year blob' category?. If there is, take a deep breath, and just don't do it, let it fall off the end of the desk, see who notices. Often nobody does.
Slightly left field suggestion as was once in a similar position, one example regularly fielding calls late into the evening from folks out on USA West Coast, it was still their afternoon, but they knew the Swedes would have gone home 4pm prompt local time, so before their West Coast day had started, and they knew who from the Swedish office would answer regardless. Just one example. USA East coast weren't so bad, Australia was a pain, usually got them before breakfast.
So, assuming reports of needing help or overload get the usual "cocking a deaf 'un" response, is everything that lands on your plate something that really has to get done, or is there stuff that is in the 'well maybe it's nice to have this, maybe not that immediately relevant today, but we've been generating this report since year blob' category?. If there is, take a deep breath, and just don't do it, let it fall off the end of the desk, see who notices. Often nobody does.
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