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Swedish software company (not new-ish): Almost all developers work their nominal work hours. A few work a little more on their own choice. There is no pressure
by johansch 12y ago
Swedish software company (not new-ish):
Almost all developers work their nominal work hours. A few work a little more on their own choice. There is no pressure to do so, but it's also not frowned upon (unless it's obvious that there's some cultural misunderstandings going on, e.g. in the case of someone moving in from a non-scandinavian work culture, perhaps thinking that they really, really have to prove themselves by working hard to get to stay.)
At crunch time sometimes key people get asked/ordered to work paid overtime (each overtime hour ends up something like 2x a normal hour, I forgot the exact constant). Estimate max 50 overtime hours/person/year, and not every year. There is some sort of social pressure that makes you feel bad when ordering this overtime....
Senior managers tend to work more hours, but they are also better compensated.
- jahaja 12y agoIt's pretty common to have unpaid overtime (including crunch periods) in Sweden as well. Actually, I've not heard anyone having overtime pay while working in IT. The lack of overtime pay is usually "compensated" through an additional week of vacation or similar.
- mgbmtl 12y agoIf you are getting paid vacation, it has the double benefit that 1- you are getting paid, 2- you are forced to take time off to compensate and avoid burn out. Most companies I have dealt with in the past (in Quebec/Canada) usually compensated with 1.5h of vacation time for each hour of overtime. A normal work week is 37.5h, and overtime starts at 40h, so you have a bit of leg room. It's a good way to avoid systemic overtime and bad management.
- johansch 12y agoIn the first company I worked for for, that was the case (a sixth vacation week, compensating for overtime). I think it's a bad idea for both the employer and the (ambitious) employee though.
- alkonaut 12y ago"Unpaid overtime" in this context usually means no extra compensation, other than the 1-1 compensation if working less next week or next month. That is, a 50h week followed by a 30h week. Ordered overtime still has to be paid, but just at the normal rate. Having this in your contract isn't very good, and you should have at least 10-20% extra compensation. An extra week vacation isn't a good compensation for this, but it's common, sadly.
- jahaja 12y agoIf one has traded overtime pay for a weeks vacation you won't get overtime pay for ordered overtime either. The overtime just can't be "planned/scheduled", it's rather vague unfortunately.