Annualised Hours

[DarkMark]

Hello everyone,

 

Forgive me if this has been covered before, new to the forum.

 

My boss has just handed his notice in to the theater management, Im keen to do his job as the next step on the career ladder, however the new job description and contract has changed from a 36hr p/wk to an annualised hour contract.

 

Ive started looking into this and it appears as though it works great for the employer, not so much for the employee as essentially OT payments are eliminated along with any unsociable hourly payment. Also it looks as though this is a method to enable a 24hr/7 day a week call out (with 24hrs notice) without any benefit to the employee.

 

I work in a busy receiving house and currently on a 36hr/week contract with OT payable (with some TOIL when its possible to take that), although the bosses job is a bit more cash, it seems as though the benefits only apply to the employer rather than the employee.

 

Is anyone out there working this system at the moment and how does it work for you?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Mark

[djw1981]

The benefits in theory are that on a week with no work, you don't go in but do get paid. So it smooths the payroll (and your income).

 

If you are a busy place then the risk for the employer is that you recah your allocated (36hrs x47wks = 1692hrs/yr) in say October. This means that ALL your hours from this point onwards are on whatever overtime rates have been specified. A friend on annualised hours, in a different industry, reached his hours in August one year, then his company gained a new contract as someone left. He was working at triple time for even hour that December.

[Dave m]

when I worked in a council run venue the idea was that there were "balancing periods" where the aim was to prevent too many hours being clocked up too early, and a;ll the techs were on this system.

Basically if you worked too much one month, they took you off the rota to get the hours down,

 

 

Where I work now, we use TOIL, but any grade higher than mine does not get any OT or TOIL payment.

The attitude is that the work is done when it is done and they gat paid more because of the grade.

 

In practice it does mean that if they work a couple of long days, they "self TOIL" and take a day off in lieu but it is unofficial and not what the HR dept think is happening.

[gareth]

It only works as long as you have the opportunity to even out the hours across the appropriate period. If you work a 70-hour week, for example, there needs to be a chance to balance that out with a week off or a couple of 2.5-day weeks within a reasonable time frame.

 

Given that this newly-implemented contract is going to apply to an established position which has existed for some time, I'd say there's probably sufficient data for you (and the management, although they may not care so much!) to establish whether it's going to work out. Look at the hours worked by the post-holder over the last 12 months - does the total hours worked over that year exceed 1872? And if it did, would they have struggled to make the adjustments to the working pattern which would've enabled the annualised hours to fall within the contracted amount? If the answer to both of those questions is no, then it's fairly obvious that the annualised hours arrangement simply isn't going to work unless there's also a rethink in terms of what's required of the post-holder from a working time point of view.

[Jivemaster]

Ultimately in industry it's normal for "works" staff to be hourly paid but for office and management to be paid an annual salary. Sometimes top of the hourly rates is more than bottom of the yearly rates.

 

Where will a successful first year in the management job see you? grades and pay up or hours up and pay down?

[paulears]

I know where one venue changed to this system, the staff weren't that convinced, but they all settled into it. However, it does cause problems with them clocking up too much time owed, then not being available together, and worse still, when the permanent staff had parallel illness, then it goes wrong even quicker, as the permanent staff also have other duties to do with legislation, safety and paperwork, and to ensure cover, they use up even more hours that TOIL can't cover. The new management recognise the problems and want to return to the old system, but of course the staff have got used to the regular salary, and absence of the BECTU get out fees. They seem, from my outsiders viewpoint to have got a good deal from the annualisation.

 

Worse still from my outside viewpoint as a production company is that the system removes continuity in staffing - you do a few days with one crew, then suddenly people vanish as their hours reach the cap, and they are replaced by complete strangers to make up the numbers but performance often drifts. Stage and LX staff working from bits of paper is not the best way to make things happen efficiently.

 

I suspect many venues thought annualisation would be good, but it has created extra issues. Most of the people on the system that I meet, rather like it.

[kerry davies]

(with some TOIL when its possible to take that)

That rings alarm bells for me. In theatre work any time that TOIL is restricted is a recipe for cheap or even free labour. In combination with annualised hours I would want a significantly higher basic salary than industry norms.

 

I was once interviewed for a job and they frankly told me that there was no likelihood of me ever getting all the TOIL which was written off every month. This may well have led to my present jaundiced views but be careful because you say that this is a new scheme at a time of cutbacks and budget pressures.

[the kid]

TOIL is risky unless you have / know you will get it back, my 1st job, we had toil struck off each year. It was not until my final year we worked out the best method of working.

 

Now and in my last job we are pretty hard on making sure people had time off when required.

 

IT is also down as mentioned above, to people. No point in someone taking a week off if there is no one who can step in and cover.

 

The rules for working time directive are quite specific as well, IIR you can pick and choose what you remove, but if you sign to remove "A" that does not mean "B" is removed. Things like 11 hour rules, 24 hours off every 7, except "emergency" but IIR an emergency is something unforseen and cannot be an emergency 24 hours later.

[Just Some Bloke]

I've managed staff working annualised hours (and do at the moment) without any great problems. Quite often I would put one person on a week-long show the first week and another on a week-long show the following week. That way each person works a week on and a week off, providing good continuity for the company, and meaning that if anything goes wrong and you need to do extra hours on your week on, at least you know you're getting loads of time off the following week. It's all within the EU Working Time Directive because you need to give 2 days off in 14, which you do. In the weeks that don't have a week's run then it's rota'd in the usual way.

 

As has been mentioned, the only problem is that it needs to be well managed or you can end up using all your hours too quickly. If it is done properly, though, it does usually work out well for all concerned.

[gareth]

JSB's system of rotating staff alternately on and off week-long runs is great - as long as there are enough staff to be able to do that. However, when you have the sort of situation that a smaller venue might find itself in, with perhaps a technical manager, a chief technician and an assistant, it becomes harder to implement. The tech manager will probably not be able to rota themselves onto a fit-up and a week of performances (unless it's a particularly small and quiet venue) as there's always admin to be done - this leaves the two technical staff, and if a show needs an LX op and someone to do stage cover, that's your full-time staff accounted for. At the end of the week, you've got two staff who've worked perhaps 40 hours across the week (assuming a 9am start on the Monday and an 8-show week - plus the get-out if it's not a BECTU/TMA arrangement). So what happens if you then have another two or three weeks with the same schedule? Eventually it gets to the point where the only way to get out of the situation is to give the full-timers a week off and use casuals to cover the shows - so wouldn't it have been more cost-effective to pay your full-timers a few hours of overtime each week instead?

 

The only job I've ever had which was on a TOIL arrangement was the first theatre job I had - and it simply didn't work. When I left after almost three years, they owed me the equivalent of almost two months off, and there was no way that I was ever going to see that, either as actual time off or as a payment in lieu - so they effectively got all those hours from me for nothing. Any TOIL system, unless it's incredibly well managed, is completely biased in favour of the management and against the employee.

[paulears]

Isn't TOIL really TOILWC - as in "when convenient"? Which of course, it never is?

[kerry davies]

Isn't TOIL really TOILWC - as in "when convenient"? Which of course, it never is?

That is why I wrote that the base salary needs to be high to justify "rewards in heaven" or "jam tomorrow".

[DarkMark]

Thank you for all your feedback on this system, it looks as though if there is a team of skilled people all using this system and the rotas are rotational then its likely to benefit everyone.

 

Although the more Ive read your responses the more nervous I am about entering into this situation as there are the following issues I can see with the implementation at my venue:

 

1. This would be the only AH contract in the theater and not only does this position deal with the paperwork, legislation, H&S and daily running of the tech department but is also expected to provide show cover.

2. There are only 2 full time positions backstage, my current role as Stage Manager and the Tech Manager (the latter is the post with the change to an AH contract).

3. There isn't enough trained and experienced casual crew to facilitate all the required roles backstage as there is and this doesn't look set to change any time soon.

4. In the last 12 months, both myself and my current boss have not only been unable to take all our holiday entitlement but have also clocked up 200+hrs above our contracted hours, which we have now negotiated to be settled as OT as there is no way it can be taken as TOIL, this again doesn't look like it is going to change in the near future unless there is a complete restructuring of the back stage environment.

5. Financially it only represents an increase of about £6k on my current salary, initially this would be great, but medium to long term not so much.

 

Im going to ask a few more questions regarding how the theater plans to manage this system over the coming year and see what they have in mind, at the moment it doesnt read very well. As Jivemaster says "Where will a successful first year in the management job see you? grades and pay up or hours up and pay down?" Answer at the moment would be hours up and pay down with no time off for good behavior I think.

[gareth]

The points you make above would make me personally give this position a very, very wide berth. It sounds as though you, and the management, know full-well that there's no way you'd ever be able to bring your annualised hours in line with what you'd be contracted for, either by regulating your working week or by having the opportunity to take the time off in order to redress the balance. I reckon it's pretty much a given that anyone working in the circumstances you describe would find themselves working many, many hours for effectively nothing - and that the management know this, which I suspect is why it's even being discussed like this.

 

Aside from that, how would you feel if, as one of two technical staff at the venue, you were always aware of the fact that the other member of staff working alongside you was on a different, much better, contract than you were, and that during a busy week when both of you are working your very hardest across some long hours there's every chance that they'd actually be taking home more money than you at the end of the week?!

 

Answer at the moment would be hours up and pay down with no time off for good behavior I think.

 

You've just answered your own question. More time spent at work, and less to show for it in your pay packet. I don't know about you, but I can't see any way in which that could be described as a promotion or progression along your chosen career path.

[Jivemaster]

If you take the job will you train some casuals to do your current job? If you don't take the job will they advertise and appoint or will they leave all the work for you to do? If you take the job will they replace you (in your old position)?