Work Your Proper Hours Day tomorrow
Howard Lake | 23 February 2006 | News
Tomorrow the TUC is holding “Work Your Proper Hours Day” to encourage UK employees to stop putting in endless hours of unpaid overtime and get their work/life balance back in order. Yes, that applies to fundraisers as well.
According to the TUC, over five million people at work in the UK regularly do unpaid overtime, giving their employers £23 billion of free work every year. Indeed, the average worker effectively donates the equivalent of their wages from 1 January to 23 February to their employer in unpaid overtime.
That is why the TUC has chosen 24 February for its campaign day: it is the day when the average person who does unpaid overtime finishes the unpaid days they do every year, and starts earning for themselves.
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Of course, in the voluntary sector fundraisers and charity staff can be keen to put in extra unpaid time as a donation to their cause. Equally, unpaid overtime can be a sign of poor management and/or poor management of time by employees.
So, as the TUC recommends, tomorrow you should “take a proper lunchbreak, not just a sandwich at your desk, and leave on time, to enjoy your own time on Friday evening.”
The TUC’s campaign website includes an “online unpaid overtime calculator” to let you work out when you start earning for yourself, depending on the number of hours you put in for free.
Fundraising working practices
- UK nonprofit workers say flexible working practices are the future (7 April 2021)
- Voluntary sector workforce growing despite pandemic challenges (29 September 2021)
- New flexible working patterns could impact workplace fundraising, report suggests (13 July 2021)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.