Working Overtime vs taking a Pay-cut!
In Canada, generally speaking a white collar job is made up of a 35 hour work week; which amounts to 7.5 hours per day.
But I barely know anyone who works the prescribed 35 hour work week. But I do know a total of one person who gets paid overtime at her job. Every week I personally work at least 40 hours and one week a month I end up putting in 50 to 55 hours.
However, this is not so bad compared to some of my friends, who I know spend weekends going into work. I am not talking about smaller companies, I am talking about big corporations. Specifically jobs that are related to business systems and accounting.
One of my friends after obtaining his CA and working for one of the big four accounting firms for 3 years, decided to change career paths and took at $20k cut, to realize that he actually made more money in per hour terms!!!
Why are more people not willing to take the paycut and make more money? This is what I gather from myself and my friends.
- Because there is no certainty that they will in fact be working lesser hours
- There are bills to pay!
- It is a step backwards
- The effort required to do a thorough job search
How big of a pay cut would you be willing to take on an annual salary to work 10 less hours per week from the unpaid overtime?
hello again;
I was reading this article and had relised the first paragraph there was a wrong word in there:
“In Canada, generally speaking a white [bold]color[/bold] job is made up ….”
I apologize I had hit submit before I had finished. I wanted to add, that another possibility for not taking a pay cut would and or could be that you have invested a length of time with a company made a name or gained a certain amount of reputation and that moving would mean regaining all of that back again.
My 40 Cents worth… (inflation)
Thanks for the spell check William.
I agree with you on the point about having to prove your worth at the newer company and also the uncertainty that it will be any better than your previous company. What is that saying, “a known devil is better than the unknown one”?
This is an great article, I will definitely be adding this site to my morning routine
Glad you liked the article Kasey!
I never in a million years would’ve had the idea at things in that light. This is going to make my morning a whole lot easier.
Thanks Elizabeth, I am not sure how this makes your life easier, but I am glad you liked my view point
In Europe, the basic working hours someone must put in are about 40 per week. However, these days now more often than before, many employers are demanding to put up overtime, just to keep up with the sales, incomes, economy as a whole. They throw out the “loyalty” for the company in your face and ask you “nicely” to accept overtime with no pay otherwise you risk your job. This is one example.
Where I work, Indeed I put no more than 8 hours per day, but I am always “on call” and following the emails through the blackberry, etc.
Hey Jebus thanks for sharing that information. Maybe it is Michael Moores’ fault with his movie Sicko, but we North Americans believe that the grass is so much more greener in Europe. How many weeks of vacation do you guys get in a year? Generally in North America we get 3 weeks in a calendar year.
I know what you mean when you say they through out “loyalty”. I have not been asked to work based on loyalty, but there are numerous indirect strategies that are used by managers to keep you working late without overtime compensation. A lot of these asks are against labour codes/laws. None the less these strategies are used regardless, because employees are either not aware of the laws or are afraid to rock the boat so to speak.
But know about being “on call” with the blackberry. When I got a corporate blackberry – I was really excited! But soon realized how big of a leash it was, and you were expected to respond to emails off work hours! When I switched jobs, I ended up getting a personal iPhone. I set up corporate exchange on the iPhone (no one knows), just to stay on top on things in the morning before getting to work, etc. However, I made sure to disable push notification and check when i want to, rather than having them take my attention away all the time. Honestly, it was hard to give up the push notifications at first, but overtime I learnt to live happily without it.
Good thought, however let me go in some more depth a little bit.
In Europe it might be (or maybe is just your idea) that the grass is greener. But when it comes to staying afloat or trying to break even in business, everything is possible. In the Western part at least, you will find good moral and ethics, but if you go slightly to the East, you will see those fading more and more.
When the economic crysis hit us big, I’ve see companies which asked the employees to choose: either everyone 20% pay cut or they would have to let someone go from each department. And of course everyone went with the pay cut. The interesting thing is, that this year however, maybe more than 75% of those companies, they raised the salaries (or at least adjusted them), basis their last year’s final quarter statistics.
About the blackberry thing, some positions/job descriptions request some level of “flexibility” or on call. Plus, if you really love what you do and like to stay on top of things, checking messages every now and then, it wont be such a bad idea after all. Another thing, at the previous job, one colleague of mine went to the boss and ask him for a 300euro per month increase just to accept the blackberry. That will mean no execuses if you don’t reply to an important email after working hours, thus more hours, more pay. He got the raise instantly.
Excuse the delayed response to your comment, it somehow slipped undetected by me.
I agree with you that if you like to on top of things its great to have a blackberry to check emails before you get into work while commuting. However, I would not accept a blackberry for a small pay raise, because the number of hours that will be required to be on call would not be worth the small pay raise. However, I suppose it depends on situation to situation.
I honestly would prefer the pay cut to make more money per hr. either way I intend on saving the money earned.