adam2 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Hope this is OK as it is only indirectly theatre related. In some jobs, it is usual to work 12 hours days, 4 days on followed by 4 days off, for an agreed salary. If the days "on" happen to fall on a weekend no extra is paid, the absence of overtime payment for weekend working being reflected in the agreed salary. Tthe days "off" can be worked by mutual agreement in return for overtime payment.This arrangement is fairly common. What is however proposed for one employee is a somwhat similar arrangement, but for working 7 day on, 7 days off, all 12 hour days.This is at the employess request due to the cost of travel. It would make the best use of 7 day season tickets. Allowing for anual leave, about 24 weekly tickets would be needed each year, rather than about 48 tickets. Provided that both parties agree, and a proper contract exists, can anyone see any pitfalls in the arrangement ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Only that working an 84hour week is VERY tough and aiming to do it long-term would be foolhardy for both the employer and employee as energy levels and general mental health would take a real pounding trying to work at that level for that long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GR1 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 I agree with Tom. By the last 12 hour day the person involved will be exhausted unless the job involves a lot of doing 'nothing'. As well as being unproductive that is the time when stupid unsafe decisions are most likely to be made. Either move nearer to the job so you can afford to travel or get another job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 I don't think this would fall foul of the working time directive which allows for 48hrs/week averaged over 17 weeks.https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/overviewIt also, of course, allows for the employee to voluntarily opt out - which sounds like what s/he wants to do in this case. As to the well being of the employee and his/her productivity - that will depend on what they are doing I guess and can only really be decided by you/them. Why not give it a try for a few months and see how it goes. T Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itiba Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 It can work for some people... the guys who spark for festivals will often do 100+ 12 hour days in a row but that does take a special kind of person to do it. How much money would they be saving? I would have thought the benefit of having a social life would far outweigh the pennies saved. Also the HASAWA would not be in your favour if an accident occurred and the cause was found to be fatigue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam2 Posted February 13, 2014 Author Share Posted February 13, 2014 The work is only moderatly demanding, consisting of light maintenance, minor electrical installation work and admin/record keeping.The saving in fares would be about £1,500 a year.I would have thought that social life would be LESS impeded than by a more normal working week. Still only a proposal though (not for myself) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 How long is their door-to-door commute? 30 minutes each way would only make a 13 hour day but 2 hours each way makes it a very different 16 hour day. It might be worth thinking about getting them to see their GP for a medical opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 A saving of £1500/year equates to just £30/week. You will LOOSE a lot more than £30/week through someone trying to work 80+ hours straight thru - no-one can keep their energy level going for that long and you will loose more than 4 working hours across each week due to fatigue/apathy which means it would be cheaper for them to work a more traditional week and you pay the extra transport costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_s Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Saving £1500 a year is not to be sneezed at.However, another practical consideration (not health related) would be the staffing roster. Presumably there is at least one other member of staff to cover during the "off" part of the cycle, and this person or persons would be unlikely to want to change their shift pattern,(and probably can't be asked to do so under current employment law) so combining a 7 on/off with a 4 on/off is going to introduce an unnecessary headache for whoever does the rotas. And of course there are as others have said the welfare / efficiency considerations. However, assuming that work / home is in the oyster zone, there is talk (don't know how soon it might be happening) of Boris and TFL introducing a part-week travelcard which could be useful for this type of situation... Employers paying for travel - would this be taxable? Perhaps offer the employee an interest free loan to buy a longer running season ticket which gives more savings, and would enable them to enjoy their 4 days off by travelling around the Capital, visiting museums, art galleries, west end cinemas, shopping on Oxford street and all the other delights. I don't think this is unheard of? Not sure if there's any tax implications for this, but assuming it's a loan not a perk or benefit, it would be OK? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior8 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 How long is their door-to-door commute? 30 minutes each way would only make a 13 hour day but 2 hours each way makes it a very different 16 hour day. It might be worth thinking about getting them to see their GP for a medical opinion. These are very good points. When Mrs J8 was a Health Advisory Nurse she screened a number of clients who were following similar working patterns to this for their own convenience - sometimes with lengthy commutes as well - and were suffering health issues because of it. I certainly wouldn't countenance it for an employee, were I to have any, for the organizational reasons mentioned in Andy_s's post above. Were I a colleague of the worker concerned I would also be very worried about precedent setting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 I know somebody who lives abroad, and flys in Monday Morning, works his week, finishing on Wednesday evening, then back on the plane. He has a rented room local to the job, and has been doing it for ten years - it's 3 long days on, 4 off and he copes with it fine. Not sure I'd want to do 7 days on and 7 off, but I think the oil industry has done 7 day on 7 day off working for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw1981 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 I guess it would be worth checking with lawyers such that it is very clear that this an employee request such that if they have any incidents then a legal action against the employer is defendable.Do they do any safety related work - is the inspection at hour 83 of work that week going to be as good as the one at hour 1? In my own day job (NHS medicine) we currently do 12day weeks with 7 long (13hr) days as part of it. 7x 13hr nights is slowly being removed from rotas due to a number of fatal / serious road traffic accidents on the way home. There is also a clear correlation between mistaikes and number of hours worked in past 7 dyas - the rail / air industries have picke d up on this and have fatigue indexes for their shift patterns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam2 Posted February 14, 2014 Author Share Posted February 14, 2014 Some interesting points raised, thanks for the replies.Still under consideration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 From personal experience this kind of working is only sustainable for limited periods and for certain people. If the work is your life then fine but forget about a social life, never do it if married or in a relationship and forget it if there is any serious hazard involved in the work. If this is about the money then I would strongly urge another solution be found. I found the work absolutely fine but the days off when everyone else was "doing their normal thing" were infuriating. The married guys found it untenable either being absent when wanted or underfoot when not. People were dropped from the darts team, resentful at working instead of being at the rugby, spending two days getting back into rhythm after a ten day work binge and then having to get back into work mode after time off. We, as a group of people, tend to be used to working outside the normal, 5 day week, 9-5 rhythm of most life but work/sleep for a week followed by seven days of hanging around really isolates one from the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggy Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 With 7 days on do you travel on days 1 and 7 or days 0 and 8 (only really leaves 5 days off). I sometimes work 1000km from home which is only a one hour flight. The travel however usually takes 6 hours when you factor in travelling to and from the airport and some waiting. I do not like to work 12 hours, have 4 hours of travel and then have to drive from the airport to home. If the blue room has taught me anything, it has taught me that this is a recipe for a really bad outcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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