Overtime rate, Nothing in contract

[Boo]

One of my contract reviews from Qdos came back as a fail with the following note:

Call out rates and standby rates are employee benefits. Should you agree any additional hours, please ensure they are charged at your normal hourly rate.

Try telling that to a plumber and see if he asks you for a pension

Since they provide my IR35 insurance, I'll take guidance from them.

Hopefully if it ever comes to it their insurance will be worth more than their advice.

Boo2

[psychocandy]

I can tell they way you write you are a bedwetter, "client isn't going to react well", none of that is my problem. I work 7.5 hours a day any more than that I will be paid for. Simple as that.

Oh and I might be more flexible if the client allowed me to work from home, like it does most of the permies and some of the contractors, they said no, now they expect me to bend over backwards???

Russell, You seem a bit upset mate.

Like I said, I'm all for not letting the client take the piss, looking after yourself etc. Like you said at the end of the day, you aint doing it for free.

Cant help thinking though that sometimes its worth a bit (with emphasis on the 'bit') of flexibility. Its in YOUR interest to get an extension because its more dosh for you. Upset the client by being funny and you wont get it. So it is sort of your problem if you want an extension.

Fair point about the working from home thing though. Flexibility works both ways I guess.

[jmo21]

I can see your point a little. So client has asked you to do an extra hour a day then or is it more?

Maybe a bit different if they're asking you rather than you doing it as part of the professional day admittedly. Still think you're being a bit pedantic if it means an 8 hour day rather than a 7 hour day.

How long we talking for as well? If its only a short term then I wouldnt worry - if its long term then maybe ask client for a bit of flex on their part too as a show of good faith.

To be fair, I agree with FAQer a bit. If contract says professional day and it doesnt state number of hours I dont think you've got a leg to stand on if its just a little extra. After all, who dictates that its 7 hours or whatever? If its 9-10 hours a day then I'd kick off too.

The plumber/lawyer thing is bogus too. Like I said, not a fan of day rates (too open to abuse) but thats the way it is. Thats the way the market works these days - for lawyers/plumbers they dont.

If every single contractor in the world refused to sign up for day rates and insisted on hourly then maybe it would change. 10-15 years ago all my contracts were hourly rates. But they aint going to. You might be right about not working for free but at the moment its not going to work in your favour.

If you dont like it, then try to negotiate an hourly rate - not having a go here buts its your business after all.

Cant help thinking though that the client isn't going to react well to these extra days. Good luck if you can get it through but I'd be surprised if they've got the extra money in their budget....

Lets say good old Russ is on £55 an hour.

For that that extra hour a day, he should be charging

£55 * 5 = £275 a week
£275 *46 (av. weeks worked) = £12,650 a year.

Now, he says he finishes up in a month or so anyway, fine, but there's your principal. The client co are chancing it.

It is effectively a rate cut.

[russell]

Russell, You seem a bit upset mate.

Like I said, I'm all for not letting the client take the piss, looking after yourself etc. Like you said at the end of the day, you aint doing it for free.

Cant help thinking though that sometimes its worth a bit (with emphasis on the 'bit') of flexibility. Its in YOUR interest to get an extension because its more dosh for you. Upset the client by being funny and you wont get it. So it is sort of your problem if you want an extension.

Fair point about the working from home thing though. Flexibility works both ways I guess.

I guess my replies come across a bit angry. I agree with you that if you want to stay at a place and they are flexible then I have no problem being flexible. However I don't want to stay here and they weren't flexible.

Anyway they just replied saying they can only offer normal rate not 1.5x, will think it over the weekend.

[psychocandy]

Lets say good old Russ is on £55 an hour.

For that that extra hour a day, he should be charging

£55 * 5 = £275 a week
£275 *46 (av. weeks worked) = £12,650 a year.

Now, he says he finishes up in a month or so anyway, fine, but there's your principal. The client co are chancing it.

It is effectively a rate cut.

Possibly. I guess if theres deffo no renewal at the end or you dont intend to then tell to stuff it I suppose.

But then there's the professional day thing. At the end of the day he did sign up to this and who's to argue whether its 7 hours or 8 hours?

You could walk out a 7 dead for the next month and tell them to stuff it. What if they then played funny buggers and you had to chase timesheets/payment etc? Hassle.com

But then thats always going to be the same with the interpretation of what a professional day is. Be interested to see if this sort of thing ever got legal. i.e. can a contractor tell client to get stuffed he aint doing 8 hours only 7 hours? And then can a client not pay up - I would be tempted to say a court would say 8 hour is reasonable for client to expect whereas 9-10 hours is over the top on a regular basis.

[TheFaQQer]

Anyway they just replied saying they can only offer normal rate not 1.5x, will think it over the weekend.

If the commute is awful (which I think you said it was) and you have something better to do, then don't do the extra hours. There's more to life than sitting in an office where you don't want to be - I contract so I can have some freedom about when and where I work, so if you don't want to do the hours, then don't do them.

If you've got nothing better to do for an hour a day or so, then take the extra work. In my experience, I've not had a client offer anything extra for overtime, whether that is late work, overnight shift or weekends, apart from maybe a little time off in lieu. One client explained it as "I've got to stick to what's in the contract, and there's nothing extra in there for weekend work"; I explained "I understand, and so do I - there's nothing in there for weekend work".

[TheFaQQer]

You could walk out a 7 dead for the next month and tell them to stuff it. What if they then played funny buggers and you had to chase timesheets/payment etc? Hassle.com

But then thats always going to be the same with the interpretation of what a professional day is. Be interested to see if this sort of thing ever got legal. i.e. can a contractor tell client to get stuffed he aint doing 8 hours only 7 hours? And then can a client not pay up - I would be tempted to say a court would say 8 hour is reasonable for client to expect whereas 9-10 hours is over the top on a regular basis.

This is where not opting out helps

[Wanderer]

But then there's the professional day thing. At the end of the day he did sign up to this and who's to argue whether its 7 hours or 8 hours?

You could walk out a 7 dead for the next month and tell them to stuff it. What if they then played funny buggers and you had to chase timesheets/payment etc? Hassle.com

But then thats always going to be the same with the interpretation of what a professional day is. Be interested to see if this sort of thing ever got legal. i.e. can a contractor tell client to get stuffed he aint doing 8 hours only 7 hours? And then can a client not pay up - I would be tempted to say a court would say 8 hour is reasonable for client to expect whereas 9-10 hours is over the top on a regular basis.

Did you not read the bit where he said that the client has already agreed to pay for the extra hours?

[ecc83]

Maybe it's just me but regular working hours and/or mandated extra overtime is for permies. Do you have a schedule of deliverables? If you're tracking on time, no need to work extra. If you're behind, and it's your fault, make up the time yourself. If they want to bring a deadline forward... then negotiate. Something like that.

[ecc83]

Did you not read the bit where he said that the client has already agreed to pay for the extra hours?

What are the extra hours for? So they can exert more D+C?