Align Management News Digest
April 2005
Irish workers 'donate' up to five hours a week
IRISH workers are typically working an extra four to five hours
a week, often to cover for colleagues, and it is usually unpaid
or not even acknowledged by their supervisors.
A study of EU working practices shows that Latvians, Poles and the
Irish are amongst the hardest driven employees and work for over
90% of their time in the workplace.
The Federation of European Employers (FedEE) has revealed that
the average employee in every EU country works well in excess of
their basic contractual hours and that the main reason for this
is to cover for colleagues who are taking time off. The FedEE mainly
represents larger multinational companies throughout Europe. In
countries such as Belgium, France and the Netherlands, more than
one in five of employees are absent from work at any given time,
while in Sweden, work absence amounts to one in every four employees.
Social benefits such as paid annual leave and sickness absence,
maternity and parental leave, and part-time working all reduce the
staff numbers available for work in any typical week.
According to the research Irish full-time employees work between
42.5 and 44.1 hours a week instead of the contracted basic 39-hour
week. This does not include time and costs spent travelling between
their home and workplace.
The governments of many EU member states have further enhanced these
entitlements and created additional rights such as paternity leave,
sabbaticals and leave to care for dependants. Legally enforceable
collective agreements have also gone beyond basic statutory rights
to introduce even more opportunities to take time off according
to the employers' group.
No jobholder can be expected to have the skills to work in the accounts
department on a Wednesday, meet a technical sales representative
on a Thursday and then end the week acting as secretary to the production
director, said FedEE director Robin Chater.
The long hours revelations come as some EU government are opposing
moves to tighten the opt-out which allows workers to `volunteer'
to work well over 48-hours a week for long periods. Evidence in
Britain has revealed that unscrupulous employers sometimes force
or intimidate staff to work excess hours most weeks.
The FedEE study also shows that Irish, Poles and Latvians spend
over 90% of their working week in the workplace. It is much lower
in many other states due to greater leave entitlements.
The latest details come after a recent survey showed that many
employees, especially younger ones, are intimidated by managers
and supervisors from taking their full holiday entitlements and
other days off.
The culture of ‘presenteeism’ is considered a potential
health problem in some workplaces where workers arrive early in
the morning and remain until late in the evening. In some cases
they also bring work home with them at the weekends.
Sometimes this is done in the hope of gaining promotion but often
it is part of the "that's how it is round here" culture
developed by management or competitive pressures.
Top^ | Back
to News | 2004 News
|
