How many hours do you require of employees? 17

[referee]

I own and manage a ten person engineering firm. On the average, I work 60 hours a week at the office. My wife usually only sees me at work (she works there as well as my accountant). For those of you with engineering employees, how many hours do you require them to work? I feel that asking 50 hours a week from my employees is not too much; what do you think?

 

[BJC]

"I feel that asking 50 hours a week from my employees is not too much; what do you think?"

Get in another business. We got enough in this business that want to rob people.

 

[FranMac]

You ask "Are you a business owner?" Yes. I've had a consulting business for 17+ years and have done very well and have enjoyed it very much. But if I ever had to work an AVERAGE of 60 hours a week it would not be worth. Life is too short and work/money is only a small part of it. Just my "2 cents"

 

[referee]

This is great food for thought but I'm concerned over the quantity/quality issue. We bill our clients by the hour; the comment "if you can't get your work done in forty hours, hire more people" is a red flag that says, hey, you are either not being efficient enough, or that you are not estimating how long a project will actually take. Our clients give deadlines; a State Roadmove will happen, whether we are ready for it with our engineering or not. If the employee takes 6 hours to do 2 hours of work, but billing the client the 6 hours because that is what he reports on his timesheet, not the surfing the Internet etc. then that is the problem!

Oh and my wife IS my accountant! I know Exactly how much time I take to do things - she tells me how much, all the time ... sort of ADD ...

 

[bvanhiel]

If you're billing your clients per hour, then pay your employees over/comp time. Any extra hour of production by them converts directly into more money in your pocket, and they need to directly benefit as well. End of year bonuses are nice, but they are too far removed from the actual performance to have the same behavioral impact. Stimulus-response needs to be close in time to get the best results.

As for the 6 hours to do 2 hours of work. Well..., that guy needs a talk. If he/she doesn't improve after the talk, then it's time to show him/her the door.

-b

 

[atlas06]

Do you have the 50 hours written down in your company policy and point to your employees that requirement before you hire them? if they find out about your 50-hour rule after the facts, you've got engineers searching the Sunday adds.
If you go that route (50-hour), the word will spread that you are a sweat shop, and when that happens, you will have a tough time finding engineers, especially during good times.

I, once took a pay cut to leave a place like yours.

Another time, I interviewed with a firm that had 44 hours minimum requirement in their company policy (talk about guts). Luckily, I asked for a copy after the interview.
These guys were desperate for a senior Engineer to come in, I turned them down cold and I did not tell them the real reason neither.

Once, I worked for a man whose wife was the secretary, boy, did I hate working there? you couldn't go to the bathroom without the wife knowing about it. Squaw should do accounting at home.

 

[ee2002]

I am not a business owner. From an employee's perspective, a standard 50 hour work week would not go over well with myself even if you paid me time and a half. At a certain point, time is just worth way more than the extra money you get from working overtime. On the other hand, if you are proposing 50 hours every once in a while just to get a job out the door, then that is reasonable and expected.

 

[BJC]

There is an old axiom that goes "Workers don't cause unions, companies do."

 

[BJC]

referee

Something to consider, if any of your employees can document that you expect 50 hour weeks out of them you may be setting on a land mine. That proof may be witnesses to a conversation or even a copy of this thread.
Some state laws would make it easier than in others.
What they can do is sue you for all the back wages you "owe" them. It looks like ( from what you said here ) it would pretty easy for them to prove they were hired for 40 Hrs, worked 50 ( as a) matter of policy - not casually) and paid 40.
Once they hire a lawyer all your records oan be supeoned. If they find a pattern of you consistently underbidding jobs and completing them with "free" time you may wind up paying more than back wages.

 

[EddyC]

referee,

Speaking as an employee, if I had a choice between 2 similar jobs, one that had me work 40 hrs & the other 50, which one do you think that I would take? In such a situation, you would end up with the kinds of employees that no one else wants and work for you because they have no choice. You can imagine the quality of the resulting work. Of course if you are better than your competitors in other ways, then the higher hours that you require could be a wash, from the point of the employees.

 

[swivel63]

if i'm working 50, then i have to be getting well compensated.

 

[ee2002]

I agree with swivel63. It is not even worth it for me to work 50/week while getting paid time and a half for overtime. It would definitely be worth it to work a steady 50 while being a partner/owner of a firm.

 

[corus]

It must be a europe thing, but for me working 40 hours a week is asking too much. 50 hours per week would exceed the european directive on working time

http://www.incomesdata.co.uk/information/worktimedirective.htm

(limited to 48 hours per week, on average) and thus would be illegal in the European Union. Generally in the UK it's typical to work a 37.5 hour week, but then it's also common not to pay staff for overtime. A clear incentive to spend more time at home, if ever there was one.

corus

 

[Ashereng]

referee,

I think expecting them to work more than 40 hours a week is unreasonable. They are employees.

I think having a job description stating that the position requires 50 hours a week, and that they will be paid 50 hours a week every week (regardless of how many hours they are actually required to work each individual week) is another matter. If they have to commit to 50 hours a week, they should be paid that - sort of like if you don't show up at the dentist, they still charge you.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[atlas06]

Lets look at it this way:
50-hours/week represent 500 hours a year (assuming the you give 2 weeks vacation).
That is 12.5 weeks, 3 months of free work. This means that one must work 15 months to earn a 12 month salary.
10 hours/week represent 25% of salary. For most people, this is a mortgage.

That's a Raw deal in anyone's book.

 

[csd72]

This American obsession with hours is ridiculous and in some cases counterproductive. An engineer is a professional, not a shift worker, and as such it is the output that is important and not the hours spent.

As stated previously, those who put in the long hours do not necessarily produce the results, and vice versa. By all means set the expectations high in terms of productivity and then treat your workers with enough respect to let them decide how many extra hours they need to put in to achieve these goals.

 

[TheTick]

The obsession is only exceeded by the employer's obsession with hours. Need more productivity? Mandate more hours.

 

[GMcD]

The obsession with hours seems to be part of the "spreadsheet management" philosophy of the last 10 years- Excel can track all these nice numbers and that leads to things like "hours" as a measurement of productivity. There is no "quality of productivity" measured by keeping track of hours. Management is losing the art of "management by walking around" and truly reviewing the actual productivity and quality of what a person puts out. I'm one of those arrogant engineers that thinks I can do "10 hours worth of quality work in 8 hours", based on looking at what others in the office around me accomplish in the same time periods. Do I get rewarded for that? Hard to say. Human nature tends to expand the work to fit the hours, and it takes experience and education to know how to get efficient and accomplish more in less time. It also takes experience managers to recognize the value of quality work over simply "hours".

 

[PeterStock]

I would not remain with a company that required extra hours with no or little extra pay. I have and do put in a little extra time for the occasional "must have now" situations, but they can never be the norm.

 

[SteveinOH]

I agree in principle with what others here have said. Having worked for an enginering firm that paid straight over-time for any hours over 40, I can confidently speak of my experiences.

I have known people, hard (and good) workers, who left this company because they realized that that the way this company work wasn't right. There were (and to my knowledge still are) people at that company who work less than the 40 hours per week (that is considered by all as full-time) but still bill 40. Then my friend(s) who actually work over 40 had told me that management really scrutenized their over-time (paid as straight time anyway). Therefore, it was (much) easier to work 30-35 hours and bill 40 than it was to work 45-50 (and bill 45-50) hours. This is a problem (IMHO) with paying engineers over-time. This problem is only really compounded upon when at least one of two circumtances is true; and those are that management routinely (i.e. business model) expects its salaried employees to work overtime and/or that your hourly employees aren't really "professionals" and will "milk" hours out of a job just to get paid.

So if you are a business owner, which of the previous two is the lessor of two evils for you?

 

[GregLamberson]

I agree withSteveinOH. You've got to remember, you are providing a service to a client. The way I have read some of the responses, the engineers seem to be thinking they are doing a favor by showing up and working their 40 hours a week.

It's a 2 way street and it all has to work together. The employer must see to it that his committments to his client's are realistic and can be accommplished in the time frames set out for his employees (i.e. 40 hour work weeks). If they are then it is not too much to expect that his workers meet the schedule regardless how many hours they are in the office. We all know that the 8 hours you are in the office are not 100% effecient.

Greg Lamberson
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website:

http://www.oil-gas-consulting.com