Open all hours

A fifth of UK employees do unpaid overtime - yet our productivity lags behind much of Europe. Is it time our managers learned to manage properly?

Jane Brown is used to staying at work beyond her contractual hours. The pressures at the London graphic design firm where the 36-year-old works are such that she and her colleagues regularly put in an extra hour and a half a day, as well working some weekends - for free, of course.

"It's part of the culture," says Brown (not her real name). "As the industry is client-led, deadlines often change at the last minute and it's difficult to say no. It's a young person's industry and by the time designers reach their late 30s, the majority have moved on to less stressful jobs."

Brown is not alone. Last year, almost 5 million employees in the UK worked on average an extra seven hours and 24 minutes a week without being paid. This Friday is the TUC's third annual Work Your Proper Hours Day, the day when, it calculates, the average person who works unpaid overtime completes the "free" days they do every year, and finally starts earning for themselves.

It's no wonder so many people feel overworked and overstressed, envious of their European counterparts who work fewer hours, do less unpaid overtime and get longer holidays.

The UK is the only EU state where workers can opt out of the working time directive. A fifth of UK employees work more than 48 hours a week. And the majority of those who do unpaid overtime are in managerial, professional and administrative roles.

These extra hours saved employers £23bn in salary costs in 2005. However, all that overtime has not helped the country's competitiveness. Among the 25 nations of the EU, the UK is eighth in terms of productivity per worker, and ninth in terms of productivity per hour.

Unpaid overtime is far less common in the four most productive EU member states. In Luxembourg, 2.1% of employees work unpaid overtime, while in Belgium, France and Ireland, the proportion is 8.8%, 12.8% and 0.1% respectively. In the UK, 19.4% of the workforce work extra hours for no pay.

Yet working extra hours, paid or unpaid, is unproductive - most people make more mistakes and become less efficient if they regularly work beyond 40 hours a week. "Employers are now understanding the link between productivity, performance and the number of hours worked," says David Coats, associate director at the Work Foundation. "They also understand the link between hours worked and illness. However, there is a significant problem and until we have better ways of organising working time, Britain will not narrow the productivity gap with northern Europe."

Efficient practices

Robust and well established labour laws, including maximum statutory working hours, have prompted organisations in countries such as Belgium and France to develop more efficient ways of working.

"Even when UK companies have the same technology and skills levels as their EU rivals, productivity remains lower," says Paul Sellers at the TUC. "This points to work organisation and the skills of the managerial cadre in Britain. Most UK workers do not work long hours. But what we have is a group working excessive hours because they are not very good at managing."

Managers and professionals in the UK average an extra day a week in unpaid overtime. Their excessive and sometimes unproductive hours are part of what Coats calls "white-collar intensification" over the past 15 years.

"People say they have more work to do, they have to work harder to do it," he says. "They are subject to more rigorous performance management arrangements. They have to hit their targets in any way they can. All that can add up to a toxic work culture where people feel they have to come in before the boss and stay until the boss has left, otherwise they feel they are not showing commitment and therefore won't be promoted."

Research last August by Investors in People found over a third of British workers believed colleagues who stuck to their contractual hours were not pulling their weight. But some large companies in industries renowned for a macho, long-hours culture appear to be trying to scotch this link between presenteeism and productivity.

PricewaterhouseCoopers took part in the Department of Trade and Industry's Making Changes "masterclasses" last year. The accountancy giant has offered flexible working practices to all employees since 2003, including reduced hours. It found that those enjoying the most success with this were already performing well and confident in their abilities before changing their work pattern. A visible commitment from senior employees and line managers was also key to changing attitudes.

Such communication is key to improving how employees manage their time at work, says Nicola Maine, director of Investors in People. "If you want to make efficiency changes, you to have to role-model that behaviour as a leader or as manager," she says. "We tend to see productivity at a macro level, but we would gain more value from understanding that the individual works better if truly motivated."

Formal qualifications

Since individuals learn in different ways and each organisation has different needs, Maine recommends mentoring, shadowing and executive coaching to improve work organisation and time management. In the UK, a fifth of managers have a formal managerial qualification, according to the Chartered Management Institute. However, there is evidence that in countries where such qualifications are more prevalent, including the US, organisations are more productive.

"Research suggests that the 20% productivity gap between typical American and British firms is because US managers tend to be more robust when it comes down to HR issues," says Richard Wilson, head of business policy at the Institute of Directors. "They recruit and select more efficiently and take a more vigorous approach to staff performance. So if you haven't been trained in the best management practice, you may not employ or use your human resources as effectively as you could do."

The UK's predilection for overtime is gradually waning. Fewer people are putting in unpaid hours than five years ago. But if the country is to narrow the productivity gap between itself and its EU and US competitors, the long-hours mindset needs to be deprogrammed. We may have abandoned the 9 to 5, but there's still something to be said for keeping a careful eye on the clock.

Clocking off

The TUC's guide to reducing your hours

Long hours culture If everyone stays late to impress the boss or through habit, it is time to just say no. Make sure everyone leaves on time this Friday and keeps on doing so. Only stay late if there really is a crisis - that is when you show real commitment.

Poor organisation If you have nothing much to do some days and then stay late because there is a sudden deadline, you need better organisation. While many bosses "blame the victim" by sending anyone who complains of long hours on a time management course, some people do need to rethink the way they do their work. But many managers are poor planners who are bad at allocating work. They are the ones who need training. Try to break it to them gently - send them an anonymous bossagram email through or talk to them about it.

Too much work If everyone is putting in long hours, and it is not just a temporary blip, you have a real problem. At the very least, your boss should be looking at ways of helping you cope, such as flexitime or letting you work from home some days. But in the medium term, you must either persuade your boss to get more staff, cut out unnecessary work (or "the crap", as it is more generally known), or, if you feel it's real exploitation, take it up through a union.