Hi everyone, just a bit of advice about how to approach my manager to highlight an issue with my contracted hours Vs my actual hours.
I work in a residential rehab, and it's essentially a care home setting. I do waking nights, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Officially my shift starts at 10pm and finishes at 8am. My contract states that I work 30.5 hours a week.
The reality is I start each shift at 9.30pm, so that the evening worker can do the handover to me and leave by 10pm. This is expected.
I am also expected to leave no earlier than 8.30am, so that I can handover to the day staff. When I work Fridays and Saturdays, the clients get out of bed at 8.00, rather than 7.00am of week days, and the reality is that I end up working until 9.30am on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.
So instead of doing 10 hour shifts, I am doing 1 X 11 hour shift, and 2 X 12 hour shift. A total of 35 hour, Vs my contracted 30.5.
I am grateful to the organisation that employs me. It's a small charity with less than 50 employees. I have been doing this for less than 3 months, as a full time staff member, so am still on probation. I am keen to work hard and progress through the organisation. I believe in the work they are doing, and I believe that I can make a positive impact on the organisation.
However, I am being exploited. And that isn't acceptable. I'm arriving early so that the 2-10 shift can get off on time, or more likely early. I'm leaving late, and no one is coming in half an hour early so that I can get off on time. The more I consider this, the more I have come to the realisation that it takes the piss.
I spoke to a colleague, who was also previously my counsellor, about claiming for the unpaid work. He said that I can officially claim overtime for every half hour extra that I work, but that he personally wouldn't do this, in order to avoid seeming penny pinching. He's not management, though.
I have supervision coming up at the end of the week, so I plan to raise this issue then. I'm not great at asserting my rights, and I am slightly concerned that I'm in a probationary period. Other former residents have come through the rehab, and presumably haven't raised a stink about this happening. They've gone on to get permanent jobs as day staff. If I continue doing what I'm doing, I'm quite likely to get the same outcome. This is a goal of mine.
So I'm torn between not wanting to be exploited, and I absolutely am being exploited right now, and not wanting to upset the applecart.
I currently do a lot of overtime (training, meetings, the odd day shift covering sick colleagues), and they are very good about paying this. However, I don't want this to be overtime, as it then doesn't end up getting reflected in my holiday allowance, which is less than a full time staff member as I get a pro rata amount of holiday to reflect the fact that I am contracted for less than a full working week.
Overall, it's a good place to work, and the experience I am getting is invaluable. My CV is, ahem, chequered, to say the least, so this is an excellent opportunity for me to get back into the world of work, in a field that I feel passionate about. Working nights has its definite advantages, as well. I can binge Netflix to my heart's content, do college work, eat junk food, whatever, really. As long as the usually small amount of work I have to do is completed. I'm not even sure what my contracted breaks are, but the whole night is pretty much a break. I certainly don't want them tryna fuck with this, in retaliation or anything. I'm on to quite a cushy number, in a lot of ways.
How would you go about approaching this with management? I don't know how aware they are of how much they're taking the piss. There is certainly the money to pay for what I'm asking - we're not a rich charity, but the rehab is a profit making part of it. They can certainly afford the extra £50 odd quid a week. I need the job, but they equally need good staff, and I am good at what I do - not irreplaceable, but good enough that I think it would be a pain for them to even consider tryna fuck with me. They're short staffed generally, with some sickness and the like, and good luck tryna find someone enthusiastic and with half a brain willing to work nights shifts with diligence and passion for £10 an hour. So they aren't holding all the cards.
But as I say, I struggle with assertiveness. What I say can tend to be misconstrued as aggression, so some tips on how to present my case would be really appreciated.
Soz for the essay. I think I know what I need to do, but Urban's input is always greatly valued.
I work in a residential rehab, and it's essentially a care home setting. I do waking nights, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Officially my shift starts at 10pm and finishes at 8am. My contract states that I work 30.5 hours a week.
The reality is I start each shift at 9.30pm, so that the evening worker can do the handover to me and leave by 10pm. This is expected.
I am also expected to leave no earlier than 8.30am, so that I can handover to the day staff. When I work Fridays and Saturdays, the clients get out of bed at 8.00, rather than 7.00am of week days, and the reality is that I end up working until 9.30am on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.
So instead of doing 10 hour shifts, I am doing 1 X 11 hour shift, and 2 X 12 hour shift. A total of 35 hour, Vs my contracted 30.5.
I am grateful to the organisation that employs me. It's a small charity with less than 50 employees. I have been doing this for less than 3 months, as a full time staff member, so am still on probation. I am keen to work hard and progress through the organisation. I believe in the work they are doing, and I believe that I can make a positive impact on the organisation.
However, I am being exploited. And that isn't acceptable. I'm arriving early so that the 2-10 shift can get off on time, or more likely early. I'm leaving late, and no one is coming in half an hour early so that I can get off on time. The more I consider this, the more I have come to the realisation that it takes the piss.
I spoke to a colleague, who was also previously my counsellor, about claiming for the unpaid work. He said that I can officially claim overtime for every half hour extra that I work, but that he personally wouldn't do this, in order to avoid seeming penny pinching. He's not management, though.
I have supervision coming up at the end of the week, so I plan to raise this issue then. I'm not great at asserting my rights, and I am slightly concerned that I'm in a probationary period. Other former residents have come through the rehab, and presumably haven't raised a stink about this happening. They've gone on to get permanent jobs as day staff. If I continue doing what I'm doing, I'm quite likely to get the same outcome. This is a goal of mine.
So I'm torn between not wanting to be exploited, and I absolutely am being exploited right now, and not wanting to upset the applecart.
I currently do a lot of overtime (training, meetings, the odd day shift covering sick colleagues), and they are very good about paying this. However, I don't want this to be overtime, as it then doesn't end up getting reflected in my holiday allowance, which is less than a full time staff member as I get a pro rata amount of holiday to reflect the fact that I am contracted for less than a full working week.
Overall, it's a good place to work, and the experience I am getting is invaluable. My CV is, ahem, chequered, to say the least, so this is an excellent opportunity for me to get back into the world of work, in a field that I feel passionate about. Working nights has its definite advantages, as well. I can binge Netflix to my heart's content, do college work, eat junk food, whatever, really. As long as the usually small amount of work I have to do is completed. I'm not even sure what my contracted breaks are, but the whole night is pretty much a break. I certainly don't want them tryna fuck with this, in retaliation or anything. I'm on to quite a cushy number, in a lot of ways.
How would you go about approaching this with management? I don't know how aware they are of how much they're taking the piss. There is certainly the money to pay for what I'm asking - we're not a rich charity, but the rehab is a profit making part of it. They can certainly afford the extra £50 odd quid a week. I need the job, but they equally need good staff, and I am good at what I do - not irreplaceable, but good enough that I think it would be a pain for them to even consider tryna fuck with me. They're short staffed generally, with some sickness and the like, and good luck tryna find someone enthusiastic and with half a brain willing to work nights shifts with diligence and passion for £10 an hour. So they aren't holding all the cards.
But as I say, I struggle with assertiveness. What I say can tend to be misconstrued as aggression, so some tips on how to present my case would be really appreciated.
Soz for the essay. I think I know what I need to do, but Urban's input is always greatly valued.
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) and with the half hour hand overs accounted for at each end - but so you're still doing an hour over on each of the weekend days.
