The TUC has today warned that more and more people are working long hours - how many social workers are doing this? I knew a social worker who worked out of hours a lot, just to get everything done, and piled up time in lieu that he never had time to take...not surprising that person was on the verge of a breakdown...

Most social workers I know work over and above the hours set. I am already owed 7 weeks TOIL so far this year. The problem is that we have no staff, and in the area I work, it appears that senior management are very slow to advertise when people leave, and even when they do, there just aren't enough people interested.  Social Workers are their own worst enemies, my colleagues and I are aware that by working all these additional hours we are hiding the problem, but we want to do the best for the children and families that we work with.

 

It is very hard when people are involved. In many other professions you can just think oh well I have got so much to do that I am just going to have to do things to a lower standard. When this concerns makign profit for a multinational it is a lot easier to think in this way than when children and families are on the receiving end.

 

 

If I find myself in a crisis, I will happily work on, but that happens quite rarely, other than that, give or take the odd ten or fifteen minutes, I stick to my hours, and I never, ever take work home with me. This means I have a significant amount of paperwork on my to do eventually list. I receive no sympathy at all as half the team not only take work home every day, but start work at 7.30 as well, so the rest of us look incompetent. We really don't do ourselves any favours.

Of course, if I spent less time on here I could get more done, but I class this as reflective practice!

I dont believe in taking work home or staying on late to complete a task.  What I dont fininsh when it is time for me to go home will have to wait until the next working day.  As long as target performance is met, the managers would turn a blind eye if you are staying behind or taking work home.

there is nothing worse than hearing your manager say, 'other people are up to date', and you think, 'Those other people work 50 hours a week!'. I cannot work out of hours due to my family situation, and feel discriminated against because of this.

 I try to be really strict with myself about working hours - make sure I'm on that train home no matter what! There's been a big debate on one of our blogs about the merits of unions for personal assistants but I believe that unions are one of the only defences against long-hours culture. My current employer is good in terms of working hours but in a previous job I only felt confident enough to work my allotted hours because I knew I had the backing of a union.

What I find so disheartening is that extra hours I work are mainly to complete paperwork. Like many others, I seem to spend more time writing  than doing .

My manager has just put a ban on entering the office at the weekend as so many social workers were spending saturday and sunday catching up on paperwork (me included)! The only thing is now everyone just takes the paperwork home with them and uses their own computers to complete the work!

 Where I used to work, the office doors were unlocked at 9am and locked at 5pm. From 1pm to 2pm was lunch hour. There were no discussions - that was that. 

Where I am now, there isn't enough time in the working week to complete all the work that needs doing so it either comes home or hours creep in in the mornings or evenings. I've taken to going in early and working through lunch :(

I think the practice of locking offices at lunchtime and at 5pm should be reintroduced, as should the trolley of tea and cakes at 11am and 3pm. Employers are just laughing at the fact that so many staff are willing to work so many hours for nothing

 I like the idea of tea trolleys Willis...

But there is actually evidence to back the whole idea of working your hours. I've just blogged about some research which has linked overtime with depression and anxiety. Also depression is linked to a lack of vitamin D, which can only be gained through exposure to daylight. The best time to get daylight is between 12 and 2 - ie lunchtime - so we should all make sure we get out of the office for an hour at lunchtime  

I think all-day tea trolleys and no work at all would be best. Although we would all get very fat!

You know, we used to laugh a bit at our manager who enforced the locking of doors policy at 5pm and who chased people out of the office and refused to allow us to have calls transferred to us between 1pm and 2pm - but in retrospect, she was probably the best manager I ever worked for and had a remarkably happy and cohesive team (without any agency staff.. ). I think that says something :) 

I used to work an extra hours at least every day when I worked on a day-time team, but when management started to criticise and shadow us to check up if we were doing our hours, I stopped doing it. If you want me to account for every minute then I will; but no more than that! Now I work nights, if I do long hours I get financial reward.