I have just taken a job working nights stocking up at my local supermarket. The job title is “customer assistant, part time flexi”. Early on Monday morning I was asked to go for a sit down, noted chat as I was unable to work overtime for 2 further nights having been given 18 hours notice. I don’t want to to more than my contracted 3 nights as a: I live with bi-polar and need to be careful managing it and b: I want to work to live, not live to work. How do I best go about informing my manager of this?

What does your contract say about hours? Anything beyond that you do not need to do.

Yep its down to the contract.

However, if you don’t have much luck, you could ask for workplace adjustments to cater for your condition…I can’t see a cap an overtime limit and/or at least a days notice being unreasonable.

Just be careful if you have less than two years service that they don’t get rid of you claiming another reason.

https://www.bipolaruk.org/faqs/reasonable-adjustments-form

Overtime is voluntary unless the contract includes it in which case its not really overtime.

Does bipolar fall under the disability discrimination rules?

Overtime is a company’s failure to provide enough labour/resources for the task. Not my problem – see y’all later!

It’s not really ‘overtime’, just more hours.

The reason companies (esp. retail) offer part-time hour jobs is that they’ve then a pool of staff who can work more hours at normal pay – ie not at overtime ‘rates’.

If you can’t/don’t want to do more hours, just tell your Manager.

There is a risk though that they’ll let you go – so I’d ask the other staff first for advice.

as TJ hasn’t chipped in yet, join a union (USDAW would do) now. As you have a diagnosed mental health disability getting rid of you even slightly incorrectly will leave them open to an unlimited claim for discrimination. The union can lay hands on someone who will have DDA and mental health experience to attend any further meetings with you. You were offered representation at your formal meeting? Note it down if you weren’t.

Start to document everything now, notebook in pocket at all times with a pencil/ small pen.

Also failure by management to plan is not an emergency on your part. 18 hours notice, you had a support group appointment on both nights that is immovable. Would that have happened to a parent with children?

As above, join a union. Depending how ballistic want go mention the Equality Act and management of your condition being compromised by extra hrs above what you’ve signed up for.

“Flexibility” is fine but a part time job shouldn’t be a full time commitment. You’re not on call the rest of the time – you’re doing something else when you’re not working for them – perhaps being relied on to do something else.

Giving you sufficient notice if they want extra hours done is a better way of you  being able to say yes but it’s giving themselves time to make other arrangements if you say no too. There no reason why offering part time staff more work can’t be beneficial to both parties – just requires employers to realise part time staff don’t only work for them.

Overtime is a company’s failure to provide enough labour/resources for the task. Not my problem – see y’all later!

This is my view also. Any “flexibility” you want to provide needs to be on your terms. I’ve found working for any US firm seems to come with an expectation that your living to work also.

I’m in a position where I’m on holiday and a crucial tender is being managed by me. I’m senior sales, we don’t have a bid manager and it was made clear to me that I get “…paid enough, and my family should appreciate what brought them on holiday in the first place…” last week. Frankly to me that’s unacceptable and by the time I’ve navigated a little gravy train in terms of a bonus payment in June, I’m looking.

The point is, a company rents you time according to the contract, they do not own you. If they then deliberately seek to abuse that, either diplomatically take it up with them if you want to stick around, or leave.

Just had a look and I think GMB represent most Asda workers, Usdaw in Morrison’s, can’t find out which in Sainsbury’s or Tesco.
Ask your colleagues or ring the local union office saying you just started work at … and you want to join. The are normally super helpful. A local rep will help you with any confidential discussions with your managers. It should be fairly straightforward to sort a regular shift pattern then you get the straightforward job you need and they get a super loyal worker and everyone’s a winner (in theory at least). Good luck as discussions like this a rarely fun but most firms are understanding and I’m sure you can get sorted. You aren’t designated as being a key worker for nothing!

Overtime is a company’s failure to provide enough labour/resources for the task. Not my problem – see y’all later!

Here here. I regularly do and have done overtime, but this needs to be recognised. This is where you can get screwed with salaries and asymmetric flexibility. You get a bonus you say? Workout your number of unpaid hours you did for that bonus and for many it will be less than their standard effective hourly rate.

I’m a rep.

1. It is not compulsory unless stated in you T&Cs of employment, this will also have a number of hours attached, not just “plus overtime”

2. As intheborders said, IIRC it’s not technically overtime, even if it is over your hours due to you being part time.

3. Join a Union.

4. Next discussion, inform them you are willing to consider additional hours when you can but you need more notice than they have given you this time. You can even say you need 24/48/72 hrs if that makes it easier for you. (Do this even if you won’t work extra hours!)

Overtime is a company’s failure to provide enough labour/resources for the task. Not my problem – see y’all later!

You could say that by having “part time flexi” employees – that this is a sensible way to manage the fluctuations in demand! I’m not sure if that’s code for zero hours? Its not clear if the employee and manager discussed hours, and the flexi part before he started – its seems like exactly the sort of thing you’d check if you want flexi staff.

whenever I’ve worked places (and it was a long time ago) that used staff on variable hours there were some staff who never wanted/got extra hours and some who would take every hour offered. Generally pissing off the person who allocated hours/rotas by turning down shifts (especially hard to fill shifts) was likely to result in minimal shifts going forward. That may cause a legal problem if your reason for turning down shifts is because of a protected characteristic.

Here here. I regularly do and have done overtime, but this needs to be recognised. This is where you can get screwed with salaries and asymmetric flexibility. You get a bonus you say? Workout your number of unpaid hours you did for that bonus and for many it will be less than their standard effective hourly rate.

In what way is that relevant to the OP’s situation where he is working in Tesco. He will be paid for any extra hours he does.

In what way is that relevant to the OP’s situation where he is working in Tesco. He will be paid for any extra hours he does.

It isn’t but its in reply to RustyNissanPrairie, merely a small diversion as occur in many threads.

I’ve just looked at the contract again and it says that I will be asked to work extra shifts with 24 hours notice and that refusal to work extra shifts may be deemed a breach of contract. I can feel a quick resignation coming if I can’t negotiate a slow build up of shifts over and above my Fri, Sat, Sun contracted hours. My priority has to be my health, not my job

Ooooh, that’s a bit sneaky.

So:

1. Your T&Cs say 24hr notice, so the original “noted chat” should never have happened and all notes should be removed from record.

2. That word ‘may’ is interesting. “Can you do this?” “I’m afraid I cant that night”, this is not a breach of contract. If you say the same every time then this ‘may’ be a breach of contract. I’d suggest you get a copy, and read, their Disciplinary Procedure. Forewarned and all that.

3. Explain that, while you may be happy to work extra shifts you don’t expect to be doing it all the time as you have other commitments etc.

What a shitty thing to have in a contract 🙁

Not really conducive to having any kind of family life or social commitments is it. Shouldn’t be allowed!

I’m ‘temp’ part time at tesco atm. This is pretty common. I take the odd last minute shift when they seem like they really need me to take it (quite happy to, my managers (driving .com department) are very nice, and work damn hard (way, way too hard, but that’s another story) just to keep things running – and the extra money is always nice)

But it’s never been a problem (at all) when I say no I just say (which I do) I have other commitments sorry. They move on to the large pool of other people

Really you just need to have a good chat (in person, go and chat to them) with the person doing the books and say you can only cover the shifts you’re contracted to. Make it personable and they’ll be fine with it. They’re people, you’re a person. Supermarket world are used to employing students and people who cave in to every little request so it’s a bit abnormal atm that they have external ‘industry’ people in who don’t bend over to every overtime request. But explain why and show you’re a human and they’ll just mentally note it as ‘she’s not going to do any so I won’t bother asking, ok who’s next…’ and you will be fine.

Long winded answer ik, cba to edit

This seems like a case where it would be really useful to take an extra hour/shift or 2 early on. This means that when you turn stuff down again in the future they can’t say you never take the OT.
I know this may not be the ideal way of doing things, but it will keep you in the job if you’re concerned by that.

Sounds like you are stuck in the same predicament I was looking at if I signed a “full-time” contract with Morrisons as a delivery driver. They class full-time as 30 hours and wouldn’t budge on going any further for anyone, they expect you to ask for extra hours to make it up to 39 or whatever you need to pay the bills. The part-time contract I was on was for 7.5hrs and even that said overtime was expected to be done on a regular basis and at short notice. Seems to be standard across the retail sector now, the 7.5hr contract I was on is Morrison’s way of saying they don’t have any 0hrs contracted workers which they relied on before. The killer is if you don’t ask for overtime regularly then you get overlooked when they are asking for people to do some so it’s either constantly ask for it or get nothing.

Like you I work to live so the atmosphere and job wasn’t for me which is a pity as I enjoyed it and the people I worked with. There’s just no way I could work knowing that I had to fight for overtime every week or risk not paying the bills.

Is there an issue with these non-contracted hours basically being the equivalent of a zero-hours ish contract? I.e. the extra hours don’t count towards pension/sick leave etc?

It sounds like a pretty horrible contract. I think forcing them to make note of any disability is a good idea, they’ll have to do some mitigation. Good luck.

I would make HR aware, if not already, of health conditions. A reasonable adjustment would be for them to waive the expectation of overtime and to regularise shifts if that is what suits you best.

There was a discussion a while back on supermarket managers, you’ll get more sense from a trolley with a wobbly wheel.

I would make HR aware, if not already, of health conditions. A reasonable adjustment would be for them to waive the expectation of overtime and to regularise shifts if that is what suits you best.

Thats the line to take. If they are aware of your condition, they have to make reasonable adjustments, and failure to do so may be discrimination, and bad publicity of course.

A work and T&C’s thread and no TJ?

Is he stuck in a lift somewhere?