The TUC’s workSMART campaign (www.worksmart.org.uk) is urging us all to work our proper hours this Friday (22 February), presumably to show our bosses how undervalued we all are. According to the TUC, nearly five million people in the UK regularly do unpaid overtime, giving their employers an average £4,955 of ‘free’ work a year. Indeed, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) goes one step further to suggest, in rather stark terms, that on average, we are each giving away 40 days per year ‘free’ to our employers – that’s around 16% of our total annual work days, excluding personal holiday entitlements. And it seems the engineering profession is well out in front when it comes to putting in the additional ‘unofficial’ hours.
According to the CMI, efforts to reduce working hours in recent years have failed to have a positive impact in the engineering sector, which sees around 88% of engineering managers regularly working beyond their contracted hours. The equivalent statistic for the 2000 survey was even higher, at 91%. The ‘average’ manager now works one hour and eighteen minutes over contract each day. Apparently, only one in three do this as a matter of choice. It’s usually tight deadlines or sheer volume of work that demands the extra time. Interestingly, the CMI survey indicates that our long hours culture has virtually nothing to do with ‘over-bearing’ bosses; just two percent of respondents confessed they were pressurised into working beyond their contract hours, while three per cent said they did it with prospects of promotion in mind.
Naturally, it is easy to get embroiled in all the media hype about Britain’s long working hours culture and the negative long term effects it can have on health and family relationships. Repeatedly we are told that Britain sets the poorest example in Europe, where work-life balances are concerned. So, inevitable workload pressures aside, why are we seemingly hell bent on working long hours, when most of us are not placed under any obligation to do so by our line managers, as the CMI survey suggests?
May I risk a bold question here: are we really as efficient as we like to think we are at our places of work. And if we are efficient and do a decent day’s work, are some of us just a bit coy about being the first out of the door at the end-of-play? I guess I could be shot down in flames for that one, but isn’t there a strand of truth in this? What’s your opinion?
There is a serious point to all this, of course. As organisations are pared to the bone and employees are worked more intensively there must be a price to pay in the long run. A certain amount of stress motivates us and keeps us on our toes - over-stressed workers are de-motivated and do not perform well. Employers might consider the long term well-being of their employees and perhaps think less about the shorter term gains.
Les Hunt
Editor