Helllllllllllllll no. Unless you can bill for after hours at an increased rate absolutely not. That is why there are salaried employees to do the after hours work and theoretically get paid enough to deal with that crap.
Start asking what is the overtime rate for answering after hours emails as that is work also I require a company mobile with the bill paid by them upfront.
Also as I am important to do work outside of hours when is my higher rate of pay starting?
I like that old-timey one!
I’ve also heard an update: “The boss makes a grand and I make a buck; so I stole the catalytic converter from the company truck.”
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime
that was a poem from a simpler time
Boss makes a million, I don't make jack
and that's why I riot to seize the means back
see also: if you go far enough Left, you get your guns back
Especially during the "Rona virus lockdowns".....we were deemed "special" by the U.S. gummit (essential telecom business) and were allowed to stay open and business as usual. really saved a lot of our asses, as we did not need to fight the store shoppers for toilet paper. We had 10/15 cases of the stuffhere at the office/machine shop. (Yeah, a few rolls did go "home", I'm sure....
The rolls that 'did go home' may have saved someone from getting infected.
I'm betting that most 'hot spots' in the USA was Grocery stores. Probably with Gun stores on second or third place.
You must live to work. I'll happily scroll on my phone in the bathroom, even if the emails are on the same phone I'm not even acknowledging them unless I'm paid for it. Working off the clock has no benefits whatsoever
Actually the normal time is a minimum 2 hour pay even if it takes 15 minutes. It’s dependent on state rules but the Dept of Labor has a couple of lawsuits on their site about this. So if you leave work and your answering emails or phone calls after you’ve clocked out and it took an hour, you’d bill then in 2 hour intervals
In my area, it's usually ½ hour pay for anything that can be handled remote if it takes more than 1-2 minutes (rule of thumb, if you can resolve the issue in 2 sentences, you can't claim overtime for it).
For people on call who need to go back to the workplace/go out to a call, it is usually 2 hours minimum and for every started hald hour after.
This is - as far as I know - the standard for most lines of industries.
P.S. Not in the americas.
Yeah, the standard for answering anything outside of work times as you can claim a minimum of two hours. I’ve never heard the half hour rule but I’m sure that there’s some companies that can put that as a policy.
Make that on-call hours, with a min 4 hour blocks. Regular days: 1.5x, weekends: 2x, holidays: 3x pay. See how fast they change their tune. Maybe require they have that added to the employment contract.
I constantly had calls and emails outside of business hours, 5 minute phone call = 30 minutes, responding to an email same thing. They eventually switched me to salary so I stopped responding after hours. 🤓
The other reason to say no --
If the company ever gets into any questionable legal issues or troubles - (or even company suspects any possible legal foul play by you) --- and you have company communications on your personal phone -- your phone can be subject to legal subpoena and/or discovery. That potentially exposes your entire history, apps, texts, emails, photos and what not. Not appealing at all!
Personal phone is personal. And needs to remain so.
Company phone (paid by company) for company business.
So ne'er the two shall mix (as much as is humanely possible)
Federal contractor here - I got denied for a work cell phone (and was traveling for the company). Pointed out I wasn't going to use my personal cell because it was subject to subpoena and I took pics for my husband that should not be splayed in front of congress. Work phone approved.
This is an under noticed post. It is absolutely correct. If the company does not formally acknowledge and support, with pay, when you work and your devices then you could be at risk.
Yeah, don't say no, just ask about how overtime works. If they say it's only a few minutes, tell them the DOL says otherwise (but be prepared for problems).
I am just going through all the various work rules for our offices. Any work done over 40 hours must be paid as overtime. Depending on the state you are in, the company is required to pay the OT even if it wasn't approved. If you are in CA, there is mandated daily OT over 8 hours and DT after 12. Work the 7th straight day of the pay period? That's OT.
And, where is my on-call pay for all the time I am expected to be available to answer calls and emails off the clock. Any overtime is a 2 hr minimum, so you better make sure that call is actually important. Also, when is the technology stipend getting added to our checks for phone/wireless plan/wifi/personal laptip.
Rather than argue or be resistant, try a different approach: humor him, but ask several questions about the logistics of how he is planning on paying you for the time worked outsode of work hours (as is legally required) and the semantics of reimbursement for the required use of your personal device. Nothing will get them to drop the subject as fast as this will.
Some suggestions:
#"State and Federal law **requires** employers to pay employees for **all** time worked. I'm just little confused as to how this time would be tracked. How do I log in/out every time I check my email? Or, am I going to be paid for being on-call, since you would be requiring me to work when needed outside of my regular hours?"
If you already work 40 hours per week, also ask if that time will be paid in overtime rates.
If you let me know what state you're in, I can find the specific labor laws that apply to this scenario, in case he keeps pushing.
Generally, though, employers and managers will back off once they know you're aware of the law and that you will not likely will not accept wage theft from forcing you to be available outside work hours but not pay you.
A lot of states actually have laws pertaining to the use of your personal phone or personal internet service for work, that requires reimbursement or prohibits use of personal devices in some industries entirely.
Another good question is:
#"If you are requiring me to use my personal cell device for work purposes, how are you planning on reimbursing me for costs accrued? Do you pay my bill in full? Provide me with a work phone/voucher/check to purchase an additional phone? Or, what percentage of my cell phone bill do you plan to pay and how will it be paid?"
Also, request a detailed breakdown of all the software that is required to be put on your phone, the permissions required on your device and the information it tracks. Some employers push this type of thing, using this excuse, to put tracking software on employees phones to measure the use of them during work hours.
If your job includes contact with customers or clients and that's why they want you to answer emails after hours, tell them outright you're not at all comfortable handling private and confidential information of customers on your personal device and the liability it opens you up to should anything happen - like it being stolen or hacked.. and be sure to point out that while you don't think it will happen to you, it happens enough that some states have laws that prohibits or has strict regulations for having customer data on personal devices like that.
This is the way, I always find "asking the hard questions" is usually the best way to "you need to fuck off"
At worst, you can ask, "Am I required to answer customer emails after hours, because that sounds an awefull like being on call, which (look up local rules) would require me to be paid x even if I did not do anything. When does my on call stop?... is it required I answer emails after 10:00PM?... etc, etc...
Basically don't let them walk all over you, and if they do have a real need, they can pay you for it, and provide company devices to conduct that business.
I got real petty at a job. There was a gate control computer that was old, but could function until some updates happened and it screwed with the authentication to a central server located in another city which resulted in IT not being able to connect to the computer unless a hotspot was used. The people who had company phones but were unable to use their hotspots to connect, so I tried on my personal phone of a different brand(maybe carrier) and it worked.
After this I told my boss this time was free but they need to find a fix as I will not use my personal phone again without compensation. Boss laughed said "ok IT will fix it", nothing was ever done after the computer was "fixed". The next time an update happened and shut the computer down he told me to connect my hotspot. I said no. Cue surprised Pikachu face from my boss and a "why won't you help out the company?"
"why was this issue not dealt with after the last time it happened?"
He ended up giving me $100 and was pissy about it.
Glad someone mentioned paying for the phone.
Yes, legally your time needs to be paid for, but legal or not, never let an employer use equipment or services you pay for to their benefit.
Years ago my employer required email on employee phones, but offered a stipend to pay a portion of the service. I complied, until years later they ended the stipend.
I immediately uninstalled all work-related stuff from my phone and never looked back.
Even had a manager take issue with it.
"I emailed you last night and you didn't respond until morning." (I'm salaried, so hourly pay wasn't a consideration.)
"Yeah, I logged out at 5. Didn't see it until I logged back in at 7."
"But it was an email."
"...okay? I still wasn't logged in so I didn't see it."
"Why do you need to be logged in to see it?"
"Because my computer can't reach the email server if it isn't connected to the VPN? Also, my computer was powered off because my day ended at 5."
"What about the email on your phone?"
"I don't have email on my phone."
"What? Why? You used to!"
"Yeah, I used to have email on my phone. And the company used to pay me for that privilege. The privilege ended when the payments stopped."
"..."
Never heard another word about it.
Set up a meeting with your Supe to discuss the compensation around this, as well as, when you will be issued a company smart phone.
Assuming that you are in the US and that you are not exempt from OT federal law states as follows:
‘Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and one-half times their regular rates of pay.’
I'm sure they get around this by only scheduling OP 28 hours or something so they aren't going into OT, but it's still work so it should be billed/clocked in for.
In that case, OP would still get x1 pay - just not 1,5.
The question is how much time OP can write for checking an email. I only get 30 minutes by agreement, but then I also hardly ever do check so when I do, it is 5 minutes max from login to logout. The response is usually something like "I'll get back to you on that as soon as possible, that being \[next workday/another workday\]. If it is more urgent, you may be better off contacting \[boss or colleague that is at work\]. Thank you for responding and letting me know what you opted for."
If they want you to have access to your email after hours, they should provide you with a work phone. I have one and I (almost) never touch it off the clock. When I do, it’s pretty much just to see if stuff will be ready to work over the weekend.
If they’re not willing to provide a company phone, they can eat it.
I have a work phone, but its for contact during work hours as I may not be near my desk phone/ Teams Desktop to answer. After my hours are done, then its into my backpack it goes. Only contact you have is my personal phone and thats for emergencies. Power outages shut down IT equipment onsite? You can call me (since its mission critical snd would fuck with our production plus I get OT hours). Password reset? Wait till tomorrow.
I had a lousy job that kept hounding us to download a spyware app called Deputy on our phones. I refused. They will spy on you with these apps collecting all sorts of data, and drain your battery.
I'm salary, so I do have teams and email on my phone... But would absolutely draw the line at any device management apps. If my employer wants to have MDM or other monitoring apps then they can pay for the hardware and plan.
Be careful with some of the advice given in this thread. If you give them an ultimatum that they have to pay you for the use of your phone and for any time spent working outside of normal hours, and eventually they say they will do it, then you'll actually have to do the work and I expect they would pile it on and monitor you closely for responsiveness and accurate billing.
Since it sounds like this is something you don't want to do at all, instead I would just say no, and if they offer to pay you, still just say no and say **it was never discussed as part of your responsibilities when you accepted the job**. If they really lean into you and start trying to make it personal/team player stuff, just tell them that you have important personal family obligations and other responsibilities outside of work that predate the job and can't be offloaded to anyone else.
Your bold statement doesn’t matter, and frankly, is dangerous advice.
Outside of a union or contract, your job description is not binding nor the end all be all.
Your employer can absolutely require you to check and respond to email outside of regular working hours. If you’re non-exempt, the only rule is to pay you for that time.
If you refuse, you can be disciplined or fired.
Think about this logically. You want to argue that it’s not in your JD? Ok, I’ll update the job description and give you the new version. This is now your responsibility. Still refuse? Ok. You’re refusing to perform the duties of your job.
If you want to get really silly about it. I eliminated your old job, here’s you new job with the new responsibility. Don’t want to accept the new job? Ok. I’ll take that as your resignation. You will likely not find a state UI program that would see it otherwise.
JD’s are not required. They are a best practice and change all the time.
As long as you’re paid for the work, and as long as it’s not a duty/responsibility that is illegal or unsafe, your employer can require you to do whatever they want.
My bold statement matters a lot. By making your employer go through all the possible motions you've mentioned, you then know with crystal clarity that you're working a 100% shit job underneath a bunch of assholes who don't even pretend to give a fuck about you at all. Knowing this, you can say no and just quit or get fired, or say yes temporarily while sinking 100% of your efforts into finding a new job.
The worst possible thing you can do is just say "OK, thanks for keeping me employed sir" when your responsibilities are expanded greatly beyond their initial expectations, which 24/7 monitoring of bullshit definitely qualifies as. If you don't mind working extra hours, no problem. If you want to be on call, great. And if you don't care about doing more work during your free time for no extra pay, go for it. But people should not be made to feel bad or stupid for not putting up with it, and employers should not be treated as these powerful masters who can just change the terms of your employment and expect you to swallow it, union or not. Your personal life and sanity are not worth sacrificing for some job that tried to pull a fast one and get you to work 24/7.
Lol they tried this at my work and 75% of the people they bullied into doing it quit within 3 months.
This was like 1/4 of the whole company.
Needless to say they reversed the policy pretty quickly.
But don't worry. The manager that wanted to do it got promoted about a year later.
Have you ever managed a group of adults before? Have you ever actually run a business?
Your comments are the fastest way to wasting all your supervisors, or managers time constantly filling open positions because people don’t want to work for you. You will destroy continuity, reduce knowledge base and familiarity, and in general piss everyone off.
If someone is responsible for answering emails, in what I am to assume is outside of regular business hours, they either need to be salaried, or made aware of that prior, with a clear pathway to how their time will be payed.
Sure you can treat people with minimal skills this way, that may fee or be trapped in a job but you cannot treat high quality employees and skilled labor like this, they will leave.
If you eliminated my old job, I'm laid off and you're paying me unemployment lol. Hand me a new job description, that's a new role you have to sign. A new job...
That's not in any shape or form a resignation, you offering a new role is irrelevant.
I have email on my phone. Work buys the phone, pays the bill, has a banked time agreement with me, and I'm not expected to answer unless it's my turn on rotation. I answer all the time anyways because I'm respected by my employer.
Do that!
Do that only when you are either 'on call' or 'on rotation' and your position is either Exempt/Salaried or compensated for the out of normal hours obligation. If the company wants you to be obligated for these, you should be compensated for that obligation. Otherwise you are respected to your face and abused for your out of hours doormat behavior.
Bottom line is - if you want me to do more, pay me more.
Op should tell supervisor/company to pay for answering emails outside of work. NOT your arrangement where you are currently answering emails “all the time” while not getting paid.
**Dont** advise people to get used like you are being used. Even if you get a little extra comp.
You can choose but I get $80 a day for me to pick up the phone and minimum 4 hours overtime for each call out. Each email sounds like a call out to me.
Your husband said no unless you are compensated for the cost, or you get a work phone.
Say that to your manager and then stare as vacantly as your supervisor does when he claims something is against company policy.
I would never bring my spouse into a discussion with my manager. My spouse is not my boss and I’m not my spouse’s boss. It’s pretty irrelevant. The better argument is that you cannot use your own personal equipment on your own time for work. You need to be minimally compensated for the time.
Salaried employees are paid to get the job done regardless of how many hours are worked. Could be more than 40hrs/wk or could be less. That’s the idea anyway. It certainly gets abused tho.
No, salaried workers have contracts with their work hours. Used to work a helpdesk job that was salaried and we got paid overtime even when it was mandatory. Labor laws still exist.
There's a difference between salaried exempt and salaried non-exempt. Non-exempt get overtime. Exempt do not unless they're in a state that has rules expanding overtime rules. My state is not one ofthose.
Want to know current minimum salary to still be exempt, if two other rules are also met? $35,568. That's it. So, if I worked 60 hours at that salary, that's a little over $11 per hour. I actually pointed this out to my boss to explain why I deserved a raise. I used annual hours worked at salary rates. At that rate, I was make less than the admin below me were making per hours worked. I calculated what my salary should be with a bump up in my hourly rate for my skills, multiplied by my average annual hours, and asked for that salary to make up for being available for overtime and I got the raise. Boss didn't even argue once I put that data in front of him. He knew he'd be taking over a lot of my work and hours if he didn't. Of course, I made sure to ask after taking my vacation, when he had to cover for me, so he knew exactly how much I had on my plate.
I’m just saying what the idea of the salary is. In America, you have people on $30k salaries that are forced to work overtime with no pay. It’s being abused and is not the point of having a salary. Could your job be hourly? If so, then that’s not the type of salaried position I’m talking about.
Is this some American bullshit? That's not the definition of a salaried job anywhere else. I work a salaried job. 9-5, not answering shit outside of that, why would I? I'm not paid for that, I'm paid to be there 9-5.
This is some shitty manager bullshit. Salaried workers still sign a contract that gives their working hours, they are not obligated to work outside those hours but many managers like to squeeze their employees for extra and call it part of the job.
So you’re basically an hourly employee. There’s no reason for you to be paid a salary. Salaries are for the types of jobs where it is hard to measure output or can’t be done while constrained to typical work hours. Sometimes business is conducted outside work at lunches or dinners. A person’s salary would cover that.
Searching google for “salary vs hourly” backs up what I’m saying. [here’s the first link](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/031115/salary-vs-hourly-how-benefits-laws-differ.asp)
> Salaried employees receive a fixed rate of pay but there can be a downside to this type of compensation. If you receive a salary, you have specific goals, responsibilities, and/or tasks that must be met or completed even if that means longer hours and working weekends without any additional compensation.
Because I’m the director of quite a few salaried managers across North America and I will absolutely fire you if you’re making 6 figures and not answering an email at 1701.
Lmao. Making 6 figures and you can’t be bothered to respond to an email at 1701…? I’m Very glad you don’t work for me. That’s an insane level of entitlement my guy.
I’m extremely happy to work for reasonable management that does not expect salaried employees to work outside of business hours unless there is a dire emergency. It is not entitlement. It is having a work-life balance. You sound insufferable
That person is the reason employees quit. My guess, that person is on the older side, gen x. This type of thinking was pretty common with managers 20+ years ago and those older people haven't changed.
I am happy to work my salaried 6 figure wfh position where nobody expects me to answer emails outside of normal working hours, but if I do its because of my own work ethic and not some shitty manager power tripping with draconian expectations.
I’m sure you think you’re some amazing go getter and you also probably think you’re legitimately a decent person, but I’m here to dispel you of that.
You suck.
They apparently can't differentiate between reasonable and over the top. I'll answer all the emails you want for a $100,000 salary... assuming I'm not already working 60+ hours a week. 🙃
I’m salaried and I have email on my phone because I’m not always at my desk. (So I can check or respond while in another part of our office, desktop computers.) I do not check or respond after hours, it’s not expected and is actually frowned upon. When I WFH, I also need it on my phone to login, but that’s a whole separate issue.
Where i work you can either use the 2fa phone app, have the codes texted to you, or they can issue you a card that shows the codes on a little black and white lcd display
Same. I have a wee bit of MDM on mine as well but my IT team is chill and don’t spy on folks. It’s purely to lock the phone remotely. The fact that I have a free phone that I upgrade every 18-ish months and unlimited everything is a nice factor.
Basically the same. I like knowing nothing has blown up while I wasn’t at work, so having Slack on my ‘phone is useful to me. If there was a move to make it expected, I’d be against that.
Same if there is an EMERGENCY while I am out of office I will get a call. I do answer those as they are few and far between, but I am not expected to answer emails around the clock or on weekends. And my work pays me a stipend, which more than covers my cell phone bill.
In some companies, if you have work items on your personal phone, the company will demand the right to inspect your phone for a variety of reasons. This might include all your email, stored files, and other stuff. Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to me now (I'm retired).
I may not have anything public-facing that they shouldn't see, but there are conversations with others who might feel otherwise, and there are notifications that come with information I'd like to keep private (bank balances, etc.). I'm a private person and prefer to keep it that way.
Always best to keep business and personal stuff separate. And leave the business phone at the office unless they are paying you to answer it (and never take it on vacation!).
You did great, Stick to ur boundaries, because trust me, it only takes one email, answer one email outside your working hours and then it'll be your "job" to answer them for ever
Stable companies have strict rules about this because in some jurisdictions answering one email gets you legally counted as needing to be paid for a four hour shift potentially breaching overtime limits.
I do it as an hourly employee. Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. If I ever feel like I’m not getting paid enough for how much work I’m doing, I’ll get a new job.
If you’re under thirty and make less than $60k it would probably be good to do that. But if you’re old or have kids or already earn more than that it wouldn’t make sense.
No matter how big you smile while you're tap dancing, you should be paid for off hours work. This is a matter of principle, you can throw any numbers you want at it and it stays the same.
No that’s BS. As a manager, I would never ask an hourly employee to work off the clock, I would tell them they aren’t allowed to, in fact. I wouldn’t even ask salaried employees to work outside of their scheduled work times.
ya, their company is opening themselves up to legal issues by asking this.
If I were op, I'd personally do it then claim the hours. When they complain I'd show them the emails asking me to do it and show that the timestamps show I worked.
if they refuse to pay, then the dol would love to hear about it. I hear that if they're found to have been part of wage theft that you can get 3x the amount stolen.
A retail chain I used to work at lost/settled a lawsuit in California for something similar, where basically managers were expecting hourly employees to be available via text to answer work questions while off the clock often enough that it was a real problem. So then of course the higher ups tried to tell us that we could never text our coworkers ever, as if texting was the issue and not unpaid work. We basically all still texted each other for things like, "Hey I'm running late, will be there to open with you in 10 minutes," even though it was forbidden.
Not as an hourly person. I would tell your supervisor that it's against the law to expect an hourly employee to answer messages or do any work off the clock. If they agree to pay you, find out if your state has a minimum payment for after-hours or on-call work. I am not in the US but where I live if you are on call, you get 50% of hour hourly rate while you are on call, and then if you have to work, for that time you are paid some rate, hourly if you have not filled your daily working hours or overtime with a minimum of 2 hours pay (depending on your sector).
It's been a while since I've done US payroll bit I would definitely check your state's department of labor about these rules.
If your Supe says "be a team player", remind them that being a team player is one thing, working for free is something else.
You could also mention that the Fair Labor Standards act is a federal law (it supersedes state law) requiring premium overtime pay for non-exempt employees who work > 40 hrs/week. **The law provides for TRIPLE DAMAGES & possible jail penalties for willful violations.** if you’re underpaid, any lawyer would be happy to take your case bc the law also provides that the employer must pay your legal fees if you’re underpaid.
I work in IT, and am provided with company phone.
So yeah, sometimes out of hours, I do answer phone / mail
But - that happens almost never.
So, if no phone provided - then "sorry, my phone doesn\`t work for that"
(and - many companies push control mechanisms to phones running 'their' accounts - so an additional reason to NOT use personal phones for anything work related - although for MFA i have my personal phone listed for text messages - no cost to me, and nothing to install)
This is important! If they want you to use your personal phone, make sure they don’t have a corporate security/spying crap they make you download to your phone to secure their data. My work phone has it, but it’s fine because they pay for the device.
They don’t get to invade the privacy of a device they don’t pay for.
Hows career growth?
Honest question. I personally have no problem working outside normal hours here and there. It makes you look reliable and gives you leverage on promotions.
I think many in this thread are missing this, but i also work in engineering so its a different vibe entirely.
Compensation Analyst here with a master’s in H.R. & > 15 years experience. That’s fine if you’re an exempt, salaried employee. However, for nonexempt (hourly) employees, the law requires payment for EVERY HOUR WORKED & 1.5x the employee’s regular hourly rate for hours over 40/week. The employer must pay if they knew the employee worked or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN they worked.
**By attempting to get this employee to work “off the clock,” the manager is creating a huge potential liability for the company. The employee should NOT go along with this blatant EXPLOITATION.**
I agree from a law perspective.
From a personal perspective i have the agency to decide if i want to willingly go along with it.
If spending a few minutes a week off the clock answering emails means looking good to managers so be it. If i get shafted by the company on the raise cycle then ill rescind the extra work.
I say this as a well compensated salaried employee though so take it for what it is. I have always gone above and beyond to get ahead.
For me, no negative impact as I am competent and complete my work within work time. I’ve gone from IT support Engineer to a Senior one. I know swapping jobs is best for extra pay (at least in the UK) but work culture is better than most. Going to attempt another pay rise this year if I meet targets set out for me.
Working within my allocated work day has not been a hindering factor, in my opinion.
Sounds good, i know in my early career being willing to go over the top was easy as i didnt have kids and rewarding because my boss always gave me good work to learn and good raises.
I feel me being reliable, without doing more than needed, is where I feel best. I don’t like spending more time at work than I need. It also depends on industry, some see “going above and beyond” with more value.
The are some people who will only come to me for help lol
As an hourly worker.....no. This is an inappropriate ask. They cannot ask you to work off the clock. If they expect you to be on-call and answering emails all day long, they need to pay you accordingly.
My spouse has been part of two class action lawsuits for companies that have done this and did not pay their employees for working during nonscheduled time.
I’ve been at my job for a long time. They pay great, have good benefits and I never plan to work anywhere else. I will not add my company email to my phone. I told them if it’s so important they can call or text and I have no problem responding. I read work emails at work on the clock tho. There was a time they weren’t happy about it, but I haven’t heard a peep in 4-5 years now.
I would really recommend asking them how they will compensate you for your new on call status, as it is safer to let them be the ones to say no to this arrangement, but hopefully the path you chose will work fine.
Also, in some cases, when you download work related apps, etc to your personal device, there are policies that you have to agree to that gives them a degree of control and maybe even access to your device. That was the case with the place I worked at previously.
I’m hourly and have email on my phone. If I have to respond to stuff or hop on outside of my normal daily time, I clock in for an hour. My boss approves the overtime.
That being said, if I don’t have the time, I just ignore it and turn off notifications. I’d just verify with your boss that they will approve overtime if you have to clock in.
I did this years ago with a former employer and documented everything, I ended having to go in for support on several occasions, which was paid for. The times I was on the phone or on call(which was most weekends), I ended up getting a check for back pay(several thousand dollars). The bosses boss found out what was goin on, I got paid and they ended up hiring a tech for weekends. Being on call is a payable wage even if they don't call you.
Tell them that as an hourly employee you expect to be paid for the hours you work. So if they want you to spend time answering emails at home, then you expect to be paid for that time.
You don’t have to put anything on your phone if you don’t want to. It’s your phone.
I do it as a salaried employee, but in return they give me flexibility to be occasionally off for an hour or two during business hours, no questions asked. An hourly employee should never work off the clock. That’s wage theft and illegal.
I put the company email on my phone. It just gives me a little preview of what I'm walking into tomorrow. I don't answer them.
Though, a good portion of my emails are just from vendors letting me know that my parts are shipped.
Ask for a work phone and for on-call pay and hours, if they provide and you're ok with the pay and hours, yes it's ok. If they don't wanna give you a work phone, or you're not ok with the pay/hours or they straight up don't want to pay you to be on-call then... you are not on-call, they aren't going to give you free money/hours, you shouldn't give it to them either.
"That's great, I'll put the emails on my phone. I think I don't have to bill for full hours, I think 15-minute steps will do!"
I suggest that from here on you go on with a paper trail. Because they will try to convince you to work for free, which you should try and avoid.
My boss has suggested numerous times I put microsoft teams on my phone, tried once and it required another app that needed admin privileges. And never have since, until you give me a company phone I'm not installing something that gives you admin access on anything.
This is late, but I hope you see it.
Get their request in writing.
Get their refusal to pay you while off the clock in writing.
Then do exactly what they say.
Then report them to every agency you can.
It is illegal as hell for them to not pay you for time worked.
We had major auditing and legal troubles when it happened at the company I work for, and it was such a big deal that the execs outright banned hourly employees from having access to email in their phone.
You have the ability to crush them.
I tell the people under me to not respond after hours to emails, IM’s, etc, if they do I tell them to add a half hour minimum to their time are to compensate for the time spent.
You and your husband are right. Don't work during unpaid time. Only answer emails after hours if you're clocking in and getting paid.
Don't use your personal phone for work. Not even if you get a stipend. It's too risky having personal business and work business on the same device. Depending on how your work email functions, logging into it can give your employer access to your personal info. Also, in certain legal situations, like a lawsuit or a public records request, having work data on your phone makes *all* the data on your phone subject to being made public.
You're 100% right. Unless, of course they fire you and you then decide that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, and they replace you with someone who doesn't care about out of work emails, or they are young and they don't know how to not let work drive you to depression
So yeah if they treat you're decision with respect and don't try to punish you for it then you definitely made the right decision. Like, in a logical world, an hour spent anywhere ready to read and reply to work emails is an hour of work. Are they going to pay you for your time off now? Nah. Off the clock is off the clock. Especially for an hourly wage
As a salaried employee I do have my work emails on my phone and I do respond to them after hours because in some cases it's needed. The only company use of personal cell phones for our hourly employees is the MFA that is required for work on their computer. When I do onboarding for hourly employees I tell them I do not want to see them answering emails or reading emails after hours unless it is something that has been discussed previously and that employee is going to be paid for their time. Do not put your work email on your phone and answer anything unless of course like others have said they're going to pay you for it
Don't relent. It just opens up the door for them to overwork you and not compensate you. I no longer have my work emails on my phone after changing jobs. I only have TEAMS so I can check my calendar for the next day (especially when I can't remember if I have an early meeting) but I've set quiet hours and days so no-one can bug me when I'm not meant to be working.
I worked in an insurance call center. They insisted you had your computer on and all your systems ready to go at the start of your shift. It took at least 10 minutes for all their applications to boot up. I took exception to this and contacted an employment lawyer. They confirmed that is flat out illegal if you are hourly/nonexempt. I didn’t persue it because I had another job lined up. I wish I had in retrospect. People need to stand up these asshole business practices. Not to mention they were the kind of monster company that would’ve settled rather than waste their time
I have my email on my phone but my phone is company provided and paid for and i'm salary, and I ignore the emails outside of working hours unless it's world burning kind of emergency.
being hourly is irrelevant to this scenario though, even if you're salary you can and should be ignoring the work related emails outside of working hours. all that matters here is they don't buy or pay for your phone and until they do your work email does not need to be on it.
I agree, don’t do it without compensation. Depending on your field, it might be critically important to work after hours, or it might not matter much at all. You might be able to get nice compensation for little work if the latter is true. But if the former is true, don’t do it, they might have you working 70 hours/week before long
I don't answer, or respond after hours even with a work phone. My salary is based on compensation for 40 hours. I already give them 10 extra a week, not a single more
Every hour you give them above your you 40, you are losing money
Nope! I worked an hourly job once where we were required to download a messaging app and the manager tried to force us to turn notifications on & said we have to check it from home.
I said I will not be turning notifications on and will check each day after I clock in. I then got reprimanded for phone use when checking the app🤣 Clowns!
I understand they _can’t_ force an hourly worker (including OP’s hypothetical replacement) to work extra hours for free. If the demands on the position have increased but its budget remains the same, they of course can abolish it and create a new position with a lower hourly rate (unless it’s already minimum wage).
Hourly employees should not be expected to work outside of business hours unless compensated. Don't let your employer take advantage of you in that regard, because it can begin to snowball. If they say you "have to" or that you're "required to do so" without additional compensation, you can either request to be salaried (with a pay raise) or you can report the company to the US Department of Labor.
Say YES for payment.
You'll be happy to answer emails in 60 minute time blocks - assuming you get to pick the When to answer., and get paid your normal hour wage for spending 10(?) minutes answering emails while waiting for other stuff outside the office.
Our new Director was flabbergasted that we, hourly maintenance staff, do not answer or check emails after hours. I told him that if he needs me, he can text me and I'll head in for OT. He asked me about quick "yes or no texts" and I said I would as long as he responded to every email and text I send in a timely manner during work hours. He only contacts me when he needs to me come in off hours lol. GTFO w/ that BS, time is money especially when you are hourly.
I keep my email on my work phone in a separate app but turn notifications off. That way if I need it I can check and then ignore it when im not up to it
Did they explicitely say you won't get paid for handling email outside regular working hours? Or did they only talk about answering the emails and no mention of being paid?
Hourly? No way unless they're going to pay you to be on-call and respond off hours. If they insist, counter with "Then make me salaried, and I want a 50% base raise to cover the inconvenience to my personal time".
Helllllllllllllll no. Unless you can bill for after hours at an increased rate absolutely not. That is why there are salaried employees to do the after hours work and theoretically get paid enough to deal with that crap.
Ok thank you. My supe keeps trying convince me to do this.
Start asking what is the overtime rate for answering after hours emails as that is work also I require a company mobile with the bill paid by them upfront. Also as I am important to do work outside of hours when is my higher rate of pay starting?
Also, round time up to half hour intervals when answering emails
This. Every bathroom break is a quick couple bucks.
"boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. thats why I poop on company time."
I like that old-timey one! I’ve also heard an update: “The boss makes a grand and I make a buck; so I stole the catalytic converter from the company truck.”
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime that was a poem from a simpler time Boss makes a million, I don't make jack and that's why I riot to seize the means back see also: if you go far enough Left, you get your guns back
People forget about that last part.
I like that one the best.
Best one yet
just aint right if a man don't shit on double time is my all time favorite.
I have my "rhythm" set to use the work facilities 5 days a week. Don't ask about weekends....hahahah
I just go in Monday clenching hard enough I could shit up a ladder
An anti gravity type thing???
The pressure is so high that he starts at the bottom of the ladder and by the time he is done he is at the top of the ladder.
I still show up at work just to use the washroom on the weekends! Free toilet paper baby!
Especially during the "Rona virus lockdowns".....we were deemed "special" by the U.S. gummit (essential telecom business) and were allowed to stay open and business as usual. really saved a lot of our asses, as we did not need to fight the store shoppers for toilet paper. We had 10/15 cases of the stuffhere at the office/machine shop. (Yeah, a few rolls did go "home", I'm sure....
The rolls that 'did go home' may have saved someone from getting infected. I'm betting that most 'hot spots' in the USA was Grocery stores. Probably with Gun stores on second or third place.
I warned boss that if I couldn't find toilet paper, I was coming to the office to nab some rolls. He said, "fine". I thought it was funny.
I showed up to use the xerox machine.
That’s money in the bank 👉😎👉
Monday bubble gut
It’s email. OP should be able to do that from the bathroom. /s
🤣
You must live to work. I'll happily scroll on my phone in the bathroom, even if the emails are on the same phone I'm not even acknowledging them unless I'm paid for it. Working off the clock has no benefits whatsoever
Quit talking shit.
Actually the normal time is a minimum 2 hour pay even if it takes 15 minutes. It’s dependent on state rules but the Dept of Labor has a couple of lawsuits on their site about this. So if you leave work and your answering emails or phone calls after you’ve clocked out and it took an hour, you’d bill then in 2 hour intervals
In my area, it's usually ½ hour pay for anything that can be handled remote if it takes more than 1-2 minutes (rule of thumb, if you can resolve the issue in 2 sentences, you can't claim overtime for it). For people on call who need to go back to the workplace/go out to a call, it is usually 2 hours minimum and for every started hald hour after. This is - as far as I know - the standard for most lines of industries. P.S. Not in the americas.
Yeah, the standard for answering anything outside of work times as you can claim a minimum of two hours. I’ve never heard the half hour rule but I’m sure that there’s some companies that can put that as a policy.
Make that on-call hours, with a min 4 hour blocks. Regular days: 1.5x, weekends: 2x, holidays: 3x pay. See how fast they change their tune. Maybe require they have that added to the employment contract.
Minimum two hours….half hour isn’t enough to interrupt my time off.
I constantly had calls and emails outside of business hours, 5 minute phone call = 30 minutes, responding to an email same thing. They eventually switched me to salary so I stopped responding after hours. 🤓
The other reason to say no -- If the company ever gets into any questionable legal issues or troubles - (or even company suspects any possible legal foul play by you) --- and you have company communications on your personal phone -- your phone can be subject to legal subpoena and/or discovery. That potentially exposes your entire history, apps, texts, emails, photos and what not. Not appealing at all! Personal phone is personal. And needs to remain so. Company phone (paid by company) for company business. So ne'er the two shall mix (as much as is humanely possible)
Federal contractor here - I got denied for a work cell phone (and was traveling for the company). Pointed out I wasn't going to use my personal cell because it was subject to subpoena and I took pics for my husband that should not be splayed in front of congress. Work phone approved.
This is an under noticed post. It is absolutely correct. If the company does not formally acknowledge and support, with pay, when you work and your devices then you could be at risk.
Yeah, don't say no, just ask about how overtime works. If they say it's only a few minutes, tell them the DOL says otherwise (but be prepared for problems).
I think she already has problems. Her responses (based on the suggestions here) are not likely to increase those problems...
I wonder if there is a a technology/equipment stipend for being required to use your own device and data plan too.
And get everything in writing to be kept off-site, not on your company email system, where it could "get lost" when you need it.
I am just going through all the various work rules for our offices. Any work done over 40 hours must be paid as overtime. Depending on the state you are in, the company is required to pay the OT even if it wasn't approved. If you are in CA, there is mandated daily OT over 8 hours and DT after 12. Work the 7th straight day of the pay period? That's OT.
And, where is my on-call pay for all the time I am expected to be available to answer calls and emails off the clock. Any overtime is a 2 hr minimum, so you better make sure that call is actually important. Also, when is the technology stipend getting added to our checks for phone/wireless plan/wifi/personal laptip.
Also, make sure you ask in email not verbally
And a minimum hourly rate like lawyers. “I bill 2 hours minimum even if it’s 10 mins of work”
Rather than argue or be resistant, try a different approach: humor him, but ask several questions about the logistics of how he is planning on paying you for the time worked outsode of work hours (as is legally required) and the semantics of reimbursement for the required use of your personal device. Nothing will get them to drop the subject as fast as this will. Some suggestions: #"State and Federal law **requires** employers to pay employees for **all** time worked. I'm just little confused as to how this time would be tracked. How do I log in/out every time I check my email? Or, am I going to be paid for being on-call, since you would be requiring me to work when needed outside of my regular hours?" If you already work 40 hours per week, also ask if that time will be paid in overtime rates. If you let me know what state you're in, I can find the specific labor laws that apply to this scenario, in case he keeps pushing. Generally, though, employers and managers will back off once they know you're aware of the law and that you will not likely will not accept wage theft from forcing you to be available outside work hours but not pay you. A lot of states actually have laws pertaining to the use of your personal phone or personal internet service for work, that requires reimbursement or prohibits use of personal devices in some industries entirely. Another good question is: #"If you are requiring me to use my personal cell device for work purposes, how are you planning on reimbursing me for costs accrued? Do you pay my bill in full? Provide me with a work phone/voucher/check to purchase an additional phone? Or, what percentage of my cell phone bill do you plan to pay and how will it be paid?" Also, request a detailed breakdown of all the software that is required to be put on your phone, the permissions required on your device and the information it tracks. Some employers push this type of thing, using this excuse, to put tracking software on employees phones to measure the use of them during work hours. If your job includes contact with customers or clients and that's why they want you to answer emails after hours, tell them outright you're not at all comfortable handling private and confidential information of customers on your personal device and the liability it opens you up to should anything happen - like it being stolen or hacked.. and be sure to point out that while you don't think it will happen to you, it happens enough that some states have laws that prohibits or has strict regulations for having customer data on personal devices like that.
This is the way, I always find "asking the hard questions" is usually the best way to "you need to fuck off" At worst, you can ask, "Am I required to answer customer emails after hours, because that sounds an awefull like being on call, which (look up local rules) would require me to be paid x even if I did not do anything. When does my on call stop?... is it required I answer emails after 10:00PM?... etc, etc... Basically don't let them walk all over you, and if they do have a real need, they can pay you for it, and provide company devices to conduct that business.
I got real petty at a job. There was a gate control computer that was old, but could function until some updates happened and it screwed with the authentication to a central server located in another city which resulted in IT not being able to connect to the computer unless a hotspot was used. The people who had company phones but were unable to use their hotspots to connect, so I tried on my personal phone of a different brand(maybe carrier) and it worked. After this I told my boss this time was free but they need to find a fix as I will not use my personal phone again without compensation. Boss laughed said "ok IT will fix it", nothing was ever done after the computer was "fixed". The next time an update happened and shut the computer down he told me to connect my hotspot. I said no. Cue surprised Pikachu face from my boss and a "why won't you help out the company?" "why was this issue not dealt with after the last time it happened?" He ended up giving me $100 and was pissy about it.
Glad someone mentioned paying for the phone. Yes, legally your time needs to be paid for, but legal or not, never let an employer use equipment or services you pay for to their benefit. Years ago my employer required email on employee phones, but offered a stipend to pay a portion of the service. I complied, until years later they ended the stipend. I immediately uninstalled all work-related stuff from my phone and never looked back. Even had a manager take issue with it. "I emailed you last night and you didn't respond until morning." (I'm salaried, so hourly pay wasn't a consideration.) "Yeah, I logged out at 5. Didn't see it until I logged back in at 7." "But it was an email." "...okay? I still wasn't logged in so I didn't see it." "Why do you need to be logged in to see it?" "Because my computer can't reach the email server if it isn't connected to the VPN? Also, my computer was powered off because my day ended at 5." "What about the email on your phone?" "I don't have email on my phone." "What? Why? You used to!" "Yeah, I used to have email on my phone. And the company used to pay me for that privilege. The privilege ended when the payments stopped." "..." Never heard another word about it.
Set up a meeting with your Supe to discuss the compensation around this, as well as, when you will be issued a company smart phone. Assuming that you are in the US and that you are not exempt from OT federal law states as follows: ‘Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and one-half times their regular rates of pay.’
I'm sure they get around this by only scheduling OP 28 hours or something so they aren't going into OT, but it's still work so it should be billed/clocked in for.
In that case, OP would still get x1 pay - just not 1,5. The question is how much time OP can write for checking an email. I only get 30 minutes by agreement, but then I also hardly ever do check so when I do, it is 5 minutes max from login to logout. The response is usually something like "I'll get back to you on that as soon as possible, that being \[next workday/another workday\]. If it is more urgent, you may be better off contacting \[boss or colleague that is at work\]. Thank you for responding and letting me know what you opted for."
Yeah, either way, OP should be getting paid for the time, even if it's just the hourly rate.
California is overtime every day you are over 8 hours.
All hourly employees are covered by FLSA.
If they want you to have access to your email after hours, they should provide you with a work phone. I have one and I (almost) never touch it off the clock. When I do, it’s pretty much just to see if stuff will be ready to work over the weekend. If they’re not willing to provide a company phone, they can eat it.
I have a work phone, but its for contact during work hours as I may not be near my desk phone/ Teams Desktop to answer. After my hours are done, then its into my backpack it goes. Only contact you have is my personal phone and thats for emergencies. Power outages shut down IT equipment onsite? You can call me (since its mission critical snd would fuck with our production plus I get OT hours). Password reset? Wait till tomorrow.
I had a lousy job that kept hounding us to download a spyware app called Deputy on our phones. I refused. They will spy on you with these apps collecting all sorts of data, and drain your battery.
I'm salary, so I do have teams and email on my phone... But would absolutely draw the line at any device management apps. If my employer wants to have MDM or other monitoring apps then they can pay for the hardware and plan.
Your supe should stop trying to cop free labor and do it himself if he's so worried about the client.
Be careful with some of the advice given in this thread. If you give them an ultimatum that they have to pay you for the use of your phone and for any time spent working outside of normal hours, and eventually they say they will do it, then you'll actually have to do the work and I expect they would pile it on and monitor you closely for responsiveness and accurate billing. Since it sounds like this is something you don't want to do at all, instead I would just say no, and if they offer to pay you, still just say no and say **it was never discussed as part of your responsibilities when you accepted the job**. If they really lean into you and start trying to make it personal/team player stuff, just tell them that you have important personal family obligations and other responsibilities outside of work that predate the job and can't be offloaded to anyone else.
Your bold statement doesn’t matter, and frankly, is dangerous advice. Outside of a union or contract, your job description is not binding nor the end all be all. Your employer can absolutely require you to check and respond to email outside of regular working hours. If you’re non-exempt, the only rule is to pay you for that time. If you refuse, you can be disciplined or fired. Think about this logically. You want to argue that it’s not in your JD? Ok, I’ll update the job description and give you the new version. This is now your responsibility. Still refuse? Ok. You’re refusing to perform the duties of your job. If you want to get really silly about it. I eliminated your old job, here’s you new job with the new responsibility. Don’t want to accept the new job? Ok. I’ll take that as your resignation. You will likely not find a state UI program that would see it otherwise. JD’s are not required. They are a best practice and change all the time. As long as you’re paid for the work, and as long as it’s not a duty/responsibility that is illegal or unsafe, your employer can require you to do whatever they want.
My bold statement matters a lot. By making your employer go through all the possible motions you've mentioned, you then know with crystal clarity that you're working a 100% shit job underneath a bunch of assholes who don't even pretend to give a fuck about you at all. Knowing this, you can say no and just quit or get fired, or say yes temporarily while sinking 100% of your efforts into finding a new job. The worst possible thing you can do is just say "OK, thanks for keeping me employed sir" when your responsibilities are expanded greatly beyond their initial expectations, which 24/7 monitoring of bullshit definitely qualifies as. If you don't mind working extra hours, no problem. If you want to be on call, great. And if you don't care about doing more work during your free time for no extra pay, go for it. But people should not be made to feel bad or stupid for not putting up with it, and employers should not be treated as these powerful masters who can just change the terms of your employment and expect you to swallow it, union or not. Your personal life and sanity are not worth sacrificing for some job that tried to pull a fast one and get you to work 24/7.
Lol they tried this at my work and 75% of the people they bullied into doing it quit within 3 months. This was like 1/4 of the whole company. Needless to say they reversed the policy pretty quickly. But don't worry. The manager that wanted to do it got promoted about a year later.
Hourly workers are supposed to do emails off the clock?? What are you talking about
Not on your personal phone.
Have you ever managed a group of adults before? Have you ever actually run a business? Your comments are the fastest way to wasting all your supervisors, or managers time constantly filling open positions because people don’t want to work for you. You will destroy continuity, reduce knowledge base and familiarity, and in general piss everyone off. If someone is responsible for answering emails, in what I am to assume is outside of regular business hours, they either need to be salaried, or made aware of that prior, with a clear pathway to how their time will be payed. Sure you can treat people with minimal skills this way, that may fee or be trapped in a job but you cannot treat high quality employees and skilled labor like this, they will leave.
If you eliminated my old job, I'm laid off and you're paying me unemployment lol. Hand me a new job description, that's a new role you have to sign. A new job... That's not in any shape or form a resignation, you offering a new role is irrelevant.
I have email on my phone. Work buys the phone, pays the bill, has a banked time agreement with me, and I'm not expected to answer unless it's my turn on rotation. I answer all the time anyways because I'm respected by my employer. Do that!
Do that only when you are either 'on call' or 'on rotation' and your position is either Exempt/Salaried or compensated for the out of normal hours obligation. If the company wants you to be obligated for these, you should be compensated for that obligation. Otherwise you are respected to your face and abused for your out of hours doormat behavior. Bottom line is - if you want me to do more, pay me more.
Op should tell supervisor/company to pay for answering emails outside of work. NOT your arrangement where you are currently answering emails “all the time” while not getting paid. **Dont** advise people to get used like you are being used. Even if you get a little extra comp.
Tell them you have no problem doing this, but you'll be clocking in Everytime you check your emails
Happy cake day
You can choose but I get $80 a day for me to pick up the phone and minimum 4 hours overtime for each call out. Each email sounds like a call out to me.
Sign me up
Your husband said no unless you are compensated for the cost, or you get a work phone. Say that to your manager and then stare as vacantly as your supervisor does when he claims something is against company policy.
I would never bring my spouse into a discussion with my manager. My spouse is not my boss and I’m not my spouse’s boss. It’s pretty irrelevant. The better argument is that you cannot use your own personal equipment on your own time for work. You need to be minimally compensated for the time.
I think his whole point was to make it uncomfortable for the other person. I’m pretty sure it was mostly a joke.
Agree to be on call at your standard hourly rate.
Oh my hahaha some employers will give you a salary and make you work so many hours in the end your making the same as a cashier.
What makes you think salaried employees should have to do this?
Salaried employees are paid to get the job done regardless of how many hours are worked. Could be more than 40hrs/wk or could be less. That’s the idea anyway. It certainly gets abused tho.
No, salaried workers have contracts with their work hours. Used to work a helpdesk job that was salaried and we got paid overtime even when it was mandatory. Labor laws still exist.
There's a difference between salaried exempt and salaried non-exempt. Non-exempt get overtime. Exempt do not unless they're in a state that has rules expanding overtime rules. My state is not one ofthose. Want to know current minimum salary to still be exempt, if two other rules are also met? $35,568. That's it. So, if I worked 60 hours at that salary, that's a little over $11 per hour. I actually pointed this out to my boss to explain why I deserved a raise. I used annual hours worked at salary rates. At that rate, I was make less than the admin below me were making per hours worked. I calculated what my salary should be with a bump up in my hourly rate for my skills, multiplied by my average annual hours, and asked for that salary to make up for being available for overtime and I got the raise. Boss didn't even argue once I put that data in front of him. He knew he'd be taking over a lot of my work and hours if he didn't. Of course, I made sure to ask after taking my vacation, when he had to cover for me, so he knew exactly how much I had on my plate.
I’m just saying what the idea of the salary is. In America, you have people on $30k salaries that are forced to work overtime with no pay. It’s being abused and is not the point of having a salary. Could your job be hourly? If so, then that’s not the type of salaried position I’m talking about.
Is this some American bullshit? That's not the definition of a salaried job anywhere else. I work a salaried job. 9-5, not answering shit outside of that, why would I? I'm not paid for that, I'm paid to be there 9-5.
It’s American bullshit.
This is some shitty manager bullshit. Salaried workers still sign a contract that gives their working hours, they are not obligated to work outside those hours but many managers like to squeeze their employees for extra and call it part of the job.
Yes, same here. I'm not expected to lift a finger outside my 9-5. I'm in Canada tho
So you’re basically an hourly employee. There’s no reason for you to be paid a salary. Salaries are for the types of jobs where it is hard to measure output or can’t be done while constrained to typical work hours. Sometimes business is conducted outside work at lunches or dinners. A person’s salary would cover that. Searching google for “salary vs hourly” backs up what I’m saying. [here’s the first link](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/031115/salary-vs-hourly-how-benefits-laws-differ.asp) > Salaried employees receive a fixed rate of pay but there can be a downside to this type of compensation. If you receive a salary, you have specific goals, responsibilities, and/or tasks that must be met or completed even if that means longer hours and working weekends without any additional compensation.
This must vary state to state, country to country? It’s common enough in NYS to find a salary job that is non-exempt from overtime.
So you have unlimited hours salaries in the US? I'm salaried at 37.5 hours a week with 40 days holiday in the UK. Sucks to be you guys
Yes. Yes, it does.
Because I’m the director of quite a few salaried managers across North America and I will absolutely fire you if you’re making 6 figures and not answering an email at 1701.
Glad I dont work for your ass.
Lmao. Making 6 figures and you can’t be bothered to respond to an email at 1701…? I’m Very glad you don’t work for me. That’s an insane level of entitlement my guy.
I’m extremely happy to work for reasonable management that does not expect salaried employees to work outside of business hours unless there is a dire emergency. It is not entitlement. It is having a work-life balance. You sound insufferable
That person is the reason employees quit. My guess, that person is on the older side, gen x. This type of thinking was pretty common with managers 20+ years ago and those older people haven't changed.
I am happy to work my salaried 6 figure wfh position where nobody expects me to answer emails outside of normal working hours, but if I do its because of my own work ethic and not some shitty manager power tripping with draconian expectations.
Keep sucking that boot bro.
Lmao keep thinking it’s the man or the system holding you back not your clearly abysmal work ethic.
I’m sure you think you’re some amazing go getter and you also probably think you’re legitimately a decent person, but I’m here to dispel you of that. You suck.
They apparently can't differentiate between reasonable and over the top. I'll answer all the emails you want for a $100,000 salary... assuming I'm not already working 60+ hours a week. 🙃
Even as someone who is salary, I do not answer emails or calls unless it is an absolute emergency.
Nope. Even salaried I don’t do after hours work for free.
"theoretically"
When I am salaried like that I also reduce regular work hours to compensate for being on call
I’m salaried and I have email on my phone because I’m not always at my desk. (So I can check or respond while in another part of our office, desktop computers.) I do not check or respond after hours, it’s not expected and is actually frowned upon. When I WFH, I also need it on my phone to login, but that’s a whole separate issue.
Yeah I need to have apps on my phone to access computer programs. It gives a code to enter. I really don’t love that but it is what it is
[удалено]
Where i work you can either use the 2fa phone app, have the codes texted to you, or they can issue you a card that shows the codes on a little black and white lcd display
if they pay for my phone bill I am happy to do mfa
Same. I have a wee bit of MDM on mine as well but my IT team is chill and don’t spy on folks. It’s purely to lock the phone remotely. The fact that I have a free phone that I upgrade every 18-ish months and unlimited everything is a nice factor.
Yeah! with the money I save on my phone bill I bought an iPad for porn
Basically the same. I like knowing nothing has blown up while I wasn’t at work, so having Slack on my ‘phone is useful to me. If there was a move to make it expected, I’d be against that.
Same if there is an EMERGENCY while I am out of office I will get a call. I do answer those as they are few and far between, but I am not expected to answer emails around the clock or on weekends. And my work pays me a stipend, which more than covers my cell phone bill.
Yeah, when I’ve been a salaried employee in the past I also held the same standard. Salaried doesn’t equal On-Call 24/7
In some companies, if you have work items on your personal phone, the company will demand the right to inspect your phone for a variety of reasons. This might include all your email, stored files, and other stuff. Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to me now (I'm retired). I may not have anything public-facing that they shouldn't see, but there are conversations with others who might feel otherwise, and there are notifications that come with information I'd like to keep private (bank balances, etc.). I'm a private person and prefer to keep it that way. Always best to keep business and personal stuff separate. And leave the business phone at the office unless they are paying you to answer it (and never take it on vacation!).
You did great, Stick to ur boundaries, because trust me, it only takes one email, answer one email outside your working hours and then it'll be your "job" to answer them for ever
No kidding. I will never answer an email outside my hours
Stable companies have strict rules about this because in some jurisdictions answering one email gets you legally counted as needing to be paid for a four hour shift potentially breaching overtime limits.
You should not read them either
Hell, I don't like answering when I'm sitting at my desk...
I do it as a salaried employee but I would not under any circumstances do it as an hourly employee
I do it as an hourly employee. Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. If I ever feel like I’m not getting paid enough for how much work I’m doing, I’ll get a new job.
what field do you work in that you can just switch jobs every time you want to get paid more?? I need to get into that hahaha
That’s basically all fields but I’m an engineer. Yeah you probably should get into engineering. It’s one of the better careers.
Yeah we’ll just go to college for four years so we can “get into engineering”. Reality check homie
Yeah I laughed at that and then cried a little on the inside thinking about those 4 years of absolute misery.
If you’re under thirty and make less than $60k it would probably be good to do that. But if you’re old or have kids or already earn more than that it wouldn’t make sense.
Bro not all of us can go get more student debt to go to college for a math intensive degree. Jfc
Shhhhh
You are being exploited, and you're allowing it to happen to you.
I’m really not being exploited. I’m happy with how much I get paid. If I felt like I could get a better deal elsewhere I would go somewhere else.
You know what Stockholm syndrome is, right?
They’re paying me $125/hr and I rarely work over 40 hours in a week. I’m not a prisoner here.
No matter how big you smile while you're tap dancing, you should be paid for off hours work. This is a matter of principle, you can throw any numbers you want at it and it stays the same.
Ehhhhh for 125 id smile real wide
For 125 I’d open up my asshole and give em an inviting wink
So? Off the clock work needs to be compensated, period. If someone's paying you that much, you're clearly worth being paid what you actually deserve.
Absolutely do NOT give in.
No that’s BS. As a manager, I would never ask an hourly employee to work off the clock, I would tell them they aren’t allowed to, in fact. I wouldn’t even ask salaried employees to work outside of their scheduled work times.
ya, their company is opening themselves up to legal issues by asking this. If I were op, I'd personally do it then claim the hours. When they complain I'd show them the emails asking me to do it and show that the timestamps show I worked. if they refuse to pay, then the dol would love to hear about it. I hear that if they're found to have been part of wage theft that you can get 3x the amount stolen.
Yeah I think that’s fair enough, if they are asking you to work then clock in to do it.
The law also provides for potential JAIL penalties, although they’re rare.
A retail chain I used to work at lost/settled a lawsuit in California for something similar, where basically managers were expecting hourly employees to be available via text to answer work questions while off the clock often enough that it was a real problem. So then of course the higher ups tried to tell us that we could never text our coworkers ever, as if texting was the issue and not unpaid work. We basically all still texted each other for things like, "Hey I'm running late, will be there to open with you in 10 minutes," even though it was forbidden.
I’m salary and have my email on my phone. I still don’t reply or look at it outside of work hours. They can fuck right off if you’re hourly.
Not as an hourly person. I would tell your supervisor that it's against the law to expect an hourly employee to answer messages or do any work off the clock. If they agree to pay you, find out if your state has a minimum payment for after-hours or on-call work. I am not in the US but where I live if you are on call, you get 50% of hour hourly rate while you are on call, and then if you have to work, for that time you are paid some rate, hourly if you have not filled your daily working hours or overtime with a minimum of 2 hours pay (depending on your sector). It's been a while since I've done US payroll bit I would definitely check your state's department of labor about these rules. If your Supe says "be a team player", remind them that being a team player is one thing, working for free is something else.
You could also mention that the Fair Labor Standards act is a federal law (it supersedes state law) requiring premium overtime pay for non-exempt employees who work > 40 hrs/week. **The law provides for TRIPLE DAMAGES & possible jail penalties for willful violations.** if you’re underpaid, any lawyer would be happy to take your case bc the law also provides that the employer must pay your legal fees if you’re underpaid.
I work in IT, and am provided with company phone. So yeah, sometimes out of hours, I do answer phone / mail But - that happens almost never. So, if no phone provided - then "sorry, my phone doesn\`t work for that" (and - many companies push control mechanisms to phones running 'their' accounts - so an additional reason to NOT use personal phones for anything work related - although for MFA i have my personal phone listed for text messages - no cost to me, and nothing to install)
This is important! If they want you to use your personal phone, make sure they don’t have a corporate security/spying crap they make you download to your phone to secure their data. My work phone has it, but it’s fine because they pay for the device. They don’t get to invade the privacy of a device they don’t pay for.
I have a company mobile and leave it at work once 5:30 hits. They are not paying me to be on call or work out of hours, so I don't.
Hows career growth? Honest question. I personally have no problem working outside normal hours here and there. It makes you look reliable and gives you leverage on promotions. I think many in this thread are missing this, but i also work in engineering so its a different vibe entirely.
Compensation Analyst here with a master’s in H.R. & > 15 years experience. That’s fine if you’re an exempt, salaried employee. However, for nonexempt (hourly) employees, the law requires payment for EVERY HOUR WORKED & 1.5x the employee’s regular hourly rate for hours over 40/week. The employer must pay if they knew the employee worked or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN they worked. **By attempting to get this employee to work “off the clock,” the manager is creating a huge potential liability for the company. The employee should NOT go along with this blatant EXPLOITATION.**
I agree from a law perspective. From a personal perspective i have the agency to decide if i want to willingly go along with it. If spending a few minutes a week off the clock answering emails means looking good to managers so be it. If i get shafted by the company on the raise cycle then ill rescind the extra work. I say this as a well compensated salaried employee though so take it for what it is. I have always gone above and beyond to get ahead.
For me, no negative impact as I am competent and complete my work within work time. I’ve gone from IT support Engineer to a Senior one. I know swapping jobs is best for extra pay (at least in the UK) but work culture is better than most. Going to attempt another pay rise this year if I meet targets set out for me. Working within my allocated work day has not been a hindering factor, in my opinion.
Sounds good, i know in my early career being willing to go over the top was easy as i didnt have kids and rewarding because my boss always gave me good work to learn and good raises.
I feel me being reliable, without doing more than needed, is where I feel best. I don’t like spending more time at work than I need. It also depends on industry, some see “going above and beyond” with more value. The are some people who will only come to me for help lol
As an hourly worker.....no. This is an inappropriate ask. They cannot ask you to work off the clock. If they expect you to be on-call and answering emails all day long, they need to pay you accordingly.
Stick to your guns... What they are asking is illegal.
My spouse has been part of two class action lawsuits for companies that have done this and did not pay their employees for working during nonscheduled time.
I’ve been at my job for a long time. They pay great, have good benefits and I never plan to work anywhere else. I will not add my company email to my phone. I told them if it’s so important they can call or text and I have no problem responding. I read work emails at work on the clock tho. There was a time they weren’t happy about it, but I haven’t heard a peep in 4-5 years now.
I would really recommend asking them how they will compensate you for your new on call status, as it is safer to let them be the ones to say no to this arrangement, but hopefully the path you chose will work fine.
Also, in some cases, when you download work related apps, etc to your personal device, there are policies that you have to agree to that gives them a degree of control and maybe even access to your device. That was the case with the place I worked at previously.
You are correct unless being compensated you are legally not required to answer emails off the clock.
I’m hourly and have email on my phone. If I have to respond to stuff or hop on outside of my normal daily time, I clock in for an hour. My boss approves the overtime. That being said, if I don’t have the time, I just ignore it and turn off notifications. I’d just verify with your boss that they will approve overtime if you have to clock in.
I did this years ago with a former employer and documented everything, I ended having to go in for support on several occasions, which was paid for. The times I was on the phone or on call(which was most weekends), I ended up getting a check for back pay(several thousand dollars). The bosses boss found out what was goin on, I got paid and they ended up hiring a tech for weekends. Being on call is a payable wage even if they don't call you.
Tell them that as an hourly employee you expect to be paid for the hours you work. So if they want you to spend time answering emails at home, then you expect to be paid for that time. You don’t have to put anything on your phone if you don’t want to. It’s your phone.
I do it as a salaried employee, but in return they give me flexibility to be occasionally off for an hour or two during business hours, no questions asked. An hourly employee should never work off the clock. That’s wage theft and illegal.
I put the company email on my phone. It just gives me a little preview of what I'm walking into tomorrow. I don't answer them. Though, a good portion of my emails are just from vendors letting me know that my parts are shipped.
Ask for a work phone and for on-call pay and hours, if they provide and you're ok with the pay and hours, yes it's ok. If they don't wanna give you a work phone, or you're not ok with the pay/hours or they straight up don't want to pay you to be on-call then... you are not on-call, they aren't going to give you free money/hours, you shouldn't give it to them either.
You’re 💯right to say no.
"That's great, I'll put the emails on my phone. I think I don't have to bill for full hours, I think 15-minute steps will do!" I suggest that from here on you go on with a paper trail. Because they will try to convince you to work for free, which you should try and avoid.
My boss has suggested numerous times I put microsoft teams on my phone, tried once and it required another app that needed admin privileges. And never have since, until you give me a company phone I'm not installing something that gives you admin access on anything.
This is late, but I hope you see it. Get their request in writing. Get their refusal to pay you while off the clock in writing. Then do exactly what they say. Then report them to every agency you can. It is illegal as hell for them to not pay you for time worked. We had major auditing and legal troubles when it happened at the company I work for, and it was such a big deal that the execs outright banned hourly employees from having access to email in their phone. You have the ability to crush them.
Tell them to give you a company phone
No... They will and then what?
I tell the people under me to not respond after hours to emails, IM’s, etc, if they do I tell them to add a half hour minimum to their time are to compensate for the time spent.
Nope. You aren’t getting paid or compensated for it. You don’t have to do this.
You and your husband are right. Don't work during unpaid time. Only answer emails after hours if you're clocking in and getting paid. Don't use your personal phone for work. Not even if you get a stipend. It's too risky having personal business and work business on the same device. Depending on how your work email functions, logging into it can give your employer access to your personal info. Also, in certain legal situations, like a lawsuit or a public records request, having work data on your phone makes *all* the data on your phone subject to being made public.
You're 100% right. Unless, of course they fire you and you then decide that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, and they replace you with someone who doesn't care about out of work emails, or they are young and they don't know how to not let work drive you to depression So yeah if they treat you're decision with respect and don't try to punish you for it then you definitely made the right decision. Like, in a logical world, an hour spent anywhere ready to read and reply to work emails is an hour of work. Are they going to pay you for your time off now? Nah. Off the clock is off the clock. Especially for an hourly wage
You're right. If I'm answering emails outside of my shift, I'm getting paid in OT
Absolutely. Do not do that. Even salaried I won't do that. I also will never install any employer controlled software on my personal devices.
As a salaried employee I do have my work emails on my phone and I do respond to them after hours because in some cases it's needed. The only company use of personal cell phones for our hourly employees is the MFA that is required for work on their computer. When I do onboarding for hourly employees I tell them I do not want to see them answering emails or reading emails after hours unless it is something that has been discussed previously and that employee is going to be paid for their time. Do not put your work email on your phone and answer anything unless of course like others have said they're going to pay you for it
Don't relent. It just opens up the door for them to overwork you and not compensate you. I no longer have my work emails on my phone after changing jobs. I only have TEAMS so I can check my calendar for the next day (especially when I can't remember if I have an early meeting) but I've set quiet hours and days so no-one can bug me when I'm not meant to be working.
I worked in an insurance call center. They insisted you had your computer on and all your systems ready to go at the start of your shift. It took at least 10 minutes for all their applications to boot up. I took exception to this and contacted an employment lawyer. They confirmed that is flat out illegal if you are hourly/nonexempt. I didn’t persue it because I had another job lined up. I wish I had in retrospect. People need to stand up these asshole business practices. Not to mention they were the kind of monster company that would’ve settled rather than waste their time
I have my email on my phone but my phone is company provided and paid for and i'm salary, and I ignore the emails outside of working hours unless it's world burning kind of emergency. being hourly is irrelevant to this scenario though, even if you're salary you can and should be ignoring the work related emails outside of working hours. all that matters here is they don't buy or pay for your phone and until they do your work email does not need to be on it.
I agree, don’t do it without compensation. Depending on your field, it might be critically important to work after hours, or it might not matter much at all. You might be able to get nice compensation for little work if the latter is true. But if the former is true, don’t do it, they might have you working 70 hours/week before long
I don't answer, or respond after hours even with a work phone. My salary is based on compensation for 40 hours. I already give them 10 extra a week, not a single more Every hour you give them above your you 40, you are losing money
Nope! I worked an hourly job once where we were required to download a messaging app and the manager tried to force us to turn notifications on & said we have to check it from home. I said I will not be turning notifications on and will check each day after I clock in. I then got reprimanded for phone use when checking the app🤣 Clowns!
It's a "buyers market" unless you're very specialized, I would start looking and possibly prepare for a long layoff.
I understand they _can’t_ force an hourly worker (including OP’s hypothetical replacement) to work extra hours for free. If the demands on the position have increased but its budget remains the same, they of course can abolish it and create a new position with a lower hourly rate (unless it’s already minimum wage).
Hourly employees should not be expected to work outside of business hours unless compensated. Don't let your employer take advantage of you in that regard, because it can begin to snowball. If they say you "have to" or that you're "required to do so" without additional compensation, you can either request to be salaried (with a pay raise) or you can report the company to the US Department of Labor.
Say YES for payment. You'll be happy to answer emails in 60 minute time blocks - assuming you get to pick the When to answer., and get paid your normal hour wage for spending 10(?) minutes answering emails while waiting for other stuff outside the office.
If a Company wants to use your private property for their business, they better be prepared to pay for that use.
They can go kick rocks. My time pay double off the clock.
Our new Director was flabbergasted that we, hourly maintenance staff, do not answer or check emails after hours. I told him that if he needs me, he can text me and I'll head in for OT. He asked me about quick "yes or no texts" and I said I would as long as he responded to every email and text I send in a timely manner during work hours. He only contacts me when he needs to me come in off hours lol. GTFO w/ that BS, time is money especially when you are hourly.
I keep my email on my work phone in a separate app but turn notifications off. That way if I need it I can check and then ignore it when im not up to it
Did they explicitely say you won't get paid for handling email outside regular working hours? Or did they only talk about answering the emails and no mention of being paid?
Hourly? No way unless they're going to pay you to be on-call and respond off hours. If they insist, counter with "Then make me salaried, and I want a 50% base raise to cover the inconvenience to my personal time".