In general, we expect you to plan your days so you can complete your duties within your contracted hours (40 hours per week for full-time staff, pro-rated for part-time employees).

As a general principle, it is beneficial for all if overtime is kept to a minimum because it helps us all to maintain a healthy work-life balance and simplifies monthly payroll.

However, there may be times where you need to work overtime. Our Overtime Policy exists to make sure you’re fairly compensated for your work, but also to monitor the amount of additional hours you work to make sure you’re not working excessive hours for an extended period, which could negatively impact your health and wellbeing.

This policy applies to all contracted employees.

Standard Overtime

By default, although you can flex your hours from one day to the next, overtime beyond contracted hours is not be permitted without prior written permission.  This will help to ensure that we create a culture in which all team members have a healthy work-life balance and that we are not encouraging a culture of overworking.  If you’re working more than 40 hours regularly, it is likely not good for you or the company so we should work together to avoid it.

If you’re struggling to meet your workload in the hours that you have available within your contract, then you must raise this as soon as you become aware of it so that we can adjust your workload.

Occasionally, you may need to work additional overtime to handle an emergency, or at times of heavy workload. If you have worked extra hours on any given day, then you should take time off in lieu within a reasonable timeframe (1-4 working weeks) so that your hours for the week balance out.

A practical example of this would be that you need to meet an urgent deadline, and therefore you are working overtime one evening for 1.5 hours. You inform the team (including People Manager) and the next morning you start 1.5 hours later than usual.

In these scenarios you must follow this process:

  • Ensure that your hours balance out within the next working week
  • Ensure that any adjustment to working hours is informed to the People Manager immediately so that the team are aware
  • Plan the adjustments to your working hours so that they do not negatively impact other team members or clients

This will highlight any issues in resourcing and allow us to support you better, while also ensuring that any time off does not disrupt the wider team.

Essential Overtime

If there is an extreme situation in which it is essential that you exceed your contracted hours in order to meet your responsibilities, you must raise this in writing before working overtime and obtain written permission to work a limited number of additional hours on this occasion.  Where possible this will be compensated with time off in lieu at the earliest opportunity (even if not the same week) but if that is not possible then it will be compensated at your standard rate of pay for the number of hours worked within the agreed limit.

Because frequent, excessive overtime isn’t good for your health, we aim to keep these requests to a minimum.

In these scenarios you must follow this process:

  • Discuss and agree the requirement to work additional hours with a Director or People Manager
  • Set the number of additional hours required and when these will be worked
  • Set a limit on the timeframe that the additional hours will last (not more than two weeks)
  • Put these details in writing – an email between you and one of the Directors and People Manager is fine
  • Review the status of the workload before the date the overtime is set to end (if more than two days)
  • As usual, record your working hours in Harvest so we can keep track of the hours worked on each project.

Please note we always follow legal guidelines to ensure you’re not overworked and stressed, and you’re never going to be asked to work beyond the current legal limits. If you have any questions or concerns, always come to us to discuss them.

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make any changes that affect your current contract, we’ll always give you advanced warning.