Christmas Working.

[MrMarkyMark]

Just received notification from the company I am contracting with that they intend to offer standard day rate only for Christmas working. We have a major event over the Christmas period and I need a full team in for about a week.

Also - no recompense for on call.

Anyone else have experience of having to work over the Christmas period and is it reasonable to expect an enhanced rate to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Would my day rate contractors be within their rights to refuse to work for standard rate?

Thanks.

Well, they can refuse to work for any rate offered really.

[northernladuk]

Due to the fact many people have to travel across the country to family many people take the day off as holiday.

As a result of many staff being away lots of companies let people finish at lunch time or have the day as part of the company's standard Christmas closing holiday.

In all the years I've worked including in IT the only companies that have expected people to work a full day on Christmas Eve have been in customer facing positions or who like Grinch2017 company's management don't have a fecking clue. The latter soon learnt it wasn't a good idea.

Totally agree but the point was it's not a day you can be charging extra for. He lumped it in with xmas day and boxing day so just being pedantic about it.

[oscarose]

....they intend to offer standard day rate only for Christmas working.

Also - no recompense for on call.

Sack it off...

We have a major event over the Christmas period

Too bad...

[NotAllThere]

Indeed - having said the the posters name is Grinch and he is trying to imply Christmas has been stolen so my troll detecter is twitching!

False positive. Maybe you need to replace the batteries.

[TheFaQQer]

We have a major event over the Christmas period and I need a full team in for about a week.

Good luck with that.

I've never worked Christmas, or any time over that period, apart from working January 1st for millennium bug cover.

If you need your team in, you need to start buttering them up now - but it depends what flexibility you have in terms of what you can offer. You may not be able to pay them extra cash up front, but could you offer two days off in place of the day that they work when you need them? To be honest, the deal would have to be amazing for me to consider working over the Christmas period (or any time when I want to be on holiday / not working). The way I've priced weekend work before has been to consider what else I could be doing, and what the cost of replacing that time would be - if I'm working away and I'm needed on a weekend, that means that I don't see my family for two weeks. To make up for that, I need to spend a week away with them at some point, so I need to earn enough extra to pay for a large chunk of that.

[eek]

Just received notification from the company I am contracting with that they intend to offer standard day rate only for Christmas working. We have a major event over the Christmas period and I need a full team in for about a week.

Also - no recompense for on call.

Anyone else have experience of having to work over the Christmas period and is it reasonable to expect an enhanced rate to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Would my day rate contractors be within their rights to refuse to work for standard rate?

Thanks.

I find divorce rather expensive. The odds of me working Christmas Day unless truly well beyond standard day rate is zero...

I would be talking to people now about it but don't be surprised to see your contractors disappear for better contracts before Christmas

[MrMarkyMark]

Good luck with that.

I've never worked Christmas, or any time over that period, apart from working January 1st for millennium bug cover.

If you need your team in, you need to start buttering them up now - but it depends what flexibility you have in terms of what you can offer. You may not be able to pay them extra cash up front, but could you offer two days off in place of the day that they work when you need them? To be honest, the deal would have to be amazing for me to consider working over the Christmas period (or any time when I want to be on holiday / not working). The way I've priced weekend work before has been to consider what else I could be doing, and what the cost of replacing that time would be - if I'm working away and I'm needed on a weekend, that means that I don't see my family for two weeks. To make up for that, I need to spend a week away with them at some point, so I need to earn enough extra to pay for a large chunk of that.

Totally agree my free time carries an extra charge,

Usually for Saturday and Sunday its double rate.

Once I got paid this for sitting on a muted conference call for the day and offering just 2 vocal sentences of advice

[SueEllen]

Good luck with that.

I've never worked Christmas, or any time over that period, apart from working January 1st for millennium bug cover.

If you need your team in, you need to start buttering them up now - but it depends what flexibility you have in terms of what you can offer. You may not be able to pay them extra cash up front, but could you offer two days off in place of the day that they work when you need them? To be honest, the deal would have to be amazing for me to consider working over the Christmas period (or any time when I want to be on holiday / not working). The way I've priced weekend work before has been to consider what else I could be doing, and what the cost of replacing that time would be - if I'm working away and I'm needed on a weekend, that means that I don't see my family for two weeks. To make up for that, I need to spend a week away with them at some point, so I need to earn enough extra to pay for a large chunk of that.

When I have done weekend work before the client specifically gave me Christmas off.

In other words they worked out that Christmas is an important time for most people and that the project wouldn't really start before January so it was worth it to give as many people as possible time off around Christmas.

[northernladuk]

Gave you Christmas off? D&C much?

[WTFH]

I've worked on Christmas Day before. I'd woken up early, fired up the computer did a couple of hours knowing that no one else at the ClientCo would be working or would bother me, they had gone live at the start of December and so they were still in hypercare. Got loads done, which meant I didn't have to do any checks on Boxing Day or 27th. The client were suitable billed and had no issue. I've also worked on 1st January a few times, again due to new systems and financial year end (for some companies)