Leaving workplace before "quitting time"

Question

I am a university professor from the United States. I am on a one year "leave of absence" from my US university, and I am now in France working for an industrial research organization (high level R&D at a prime nuclear research center in the world) to improve my technical skills. I have had little experience outside of university settings until now.

I have a bit of a quandary at my current workplace. I have a boss who likes to work between 9am and 8pm and is always extremely tense and strung up. He expects a similar level of commitment from me that was not negotiated as part of a contract. Now, I understand that in research, you can't always negotiate a contract's clauses down to the last inch, as then it wouldn't be called "research", but you do generally have "hours spent at work" outlined.

I am on salary. My contract states that I will be paid for 35 hours of work a week, but my manager has made it clear that "I do not work as long as other folks in the research lab". (Most of them spend 10-12 hours a day at work). His manager feels that, although it's not entirely fair to make such unqualified comments about my work, I should work for 39 hours a week and that the working hours are 8.30am-5.10pm. (They are not really published anywhere).

I know that I have a certain attention span that allows me to work from 8.15am-5pm. After this I am quite spent, and I know that not much inspiration is going to pour out of me. At 5pm I prefer to leave since I have items in my personal life that I need to manage as well.

I hate quibbling about "how much time must I spend a day at work", but now I just stick around until 5.10pm (8.15am-5.10pm). On some days, I know that I have done enough on my daily task list at say 4.00pm, but I just sit around for the next one hour twiddling my thumbs doing nothing constructive.

I personally hate sitting around trying to appease a clock, but is this what is expected at a "real/corporate" workplace? All my life I have spent in university settings where people don't "time" me.

Is there anything wrong with leaving work early when you know that not much productive is going to happen in the last three-quarters of the hour or so?

Things I cannot consider:

• Quitting my job.

• Hiring a lawyer (I doubt this is a case for such a step).

• Work 10-12 hours a day. This, I think is absurd. Spending "a lot of time at work" doesn't necessarily translate to "getting a lot of work done" when you must manage work-life balance/priorities.

Answer 1

For what it's worth, this is coming from a French point of view.

You have to understand something. French work culture is quite specific for this.

In theory, in France, it is somewhat a legal obligation to have 35 hours on the contract. So, yes, you should work 35 hours a week.

In practice, this is far from true. If you are a factory worker, then yes, 35 hours it will be. If you are a researcher or any executive (manager etc...), basically any job that requires high diploma, you will be expected to stay longer at work, this is implicit, except if you are in the public sector.

It is really considered badly to leave at the exact time it is said on the contract, so earlier is not even something one can consider.

This is in general why you can have what's called RTT (Réduction du temps de travail). Instead of being paid for overtime, you can take more days off. In most companies, this will be 1 or 2 days off per month on top of the legal 5 weeks per year.

But again, in France, the labour code is really strong and in favour of the employee. So if you decide to work from 9 to 5, they won't be able to fire you or anything, you will just have to accept you will be considered a slacker.

And keep in mind the visibility. This is the same everywhere in the world. Your colleagues might not be as effective as you but the manager will not feel it that way.

Answer 2

Be careful: your contract states that you work 35 hours a week (as required by the law), but this is the yearly average.

A (very) common practice is to ask employees to work 39 hours a week (as it was before 2000) and even it out by giving them 10 to 12 additional days of leave. This is perfectly legal and requires you to effectively work 39 hours a week. This may be what your boss meant when he told you you had to work 39 hours a week.

Another thing to check is whether you have a "cadre" contract: in this case, although you theoretically have a 35 hours week, work time is counted in days, not in hours, and you are required to work extra time when needed, for free. As a compensation, you are allowed to leave before quitting time when your tasks of the day are done. Note that you are entitled to get 13 free hours between 2 days of work (which effectively limits the work day to 11 hours).

Yes, this is kind of crazy, but this is France after all: government makes a new law which changes everything, notices it doesn't work everywhere, and new laws are made to handle every specific case, which always ends up in a mess. That's why you can have a contract which states you work 35 hours a week, but your effective work time is counted in days.

Answer 3

My contract states that I will be paid for 35 hours of work a week but my manager has made it clear that "I do not work as long as other folks in the research lab" (most of them spend 10-12 hours a day at work). His manager feels that although it's not entirely fair to make such unqualified comments about my work, I should work for 39 hours a week and that the working hours are 8.30am-5.10pm (not really published anywhere).

Your contract says that you will be paid for 35 hours of work a week, so work 35 hours a week. If your manager wants you to work 39 hours then you say that you will gladly so so if your contract is changed so that you're payed for 39 hours, anything else is simply theft.

The people who are working 10-12 hours a day are probably being payed way more than you, so talking about fairness is simply absurd. You cannot compare one employee to another unless they have the exact same skillset and have the exact same amount of salary.

In general there's nothing wrong with leaving early as long as you've finished your mandatory times filed by your contract OR if there's no more productive work to be done, but the latter is more rare to be found and is entirely tied to individual work spaces and managers. In your case you should simply finish the mandatory hours and leave, unless you get payed more.

Hiring a lawyer would be a possibility if you'd get fired for not working those extra 4 hours a week for free, or if they threaten to do so.

Answer 4

The "35 hours" is different depending whether you are a simple employee or a "cadre".

I can guess from what you describe where you work and that you are probably what we call a "senior research engineer". You probably have a "cadre au forfait jour" status, so the 35 hours must be understood as a yearly "average". As a "cadre" you are expected to stay the number of hours that allow you to complete your tasks (which can be more or less than your nominal work duration). This is most of the time more than the 35 hours, that's why "cadres" have extra vacation days called RTT. For instance, in a famous research facility of the south of Paris, there are 23 days of RTT each year (in addition to the standard 5 weeks of vacation).

If you want to be sure of how it works, the French way is to go to the HR administration, they will tell you everything you need to know. Hiring a lawyer is mostly useless in France, except after being fired, but the court for this case is an administrative one, and is usually slow (several months or years to solve problems).

Answer 5

I personally hate sitting around trying to appease a clock, but is this what is expected at a "real/corporate" workplace?

Working a white collar job in the industry in France

This comes from a French POV, based in Paris. It can be quite different in the rest of France

The cadre status

As was stated before, in France, with a "cadre" status (which is any white collar job, in theory), in a company, you

• have 35 hours on your contract (or up to 40 hours, with compensating RTT)
• are expected to work more than that.

This is part of what having a "cadre status" is like. You are not supposed to enter your precise arriving/departure time in a software every day, you can do what you want with your day, but are supposed to work longer than the time on your contract if it is needed by your management, usually to reach deadlines.

You did not mention if your colleagues have the same contract as you. (If not, you should make sure that your manager is aware of the difference, for example if their contracts are 40h + RTT when yours is 35h.)

So, how long are you supposed to work?

The specific times will depend on your company, but usual times to come in are between 8 and 9:30, and to go home are between 5:30pm and 7:30pm. Precise times will depend on your company culture. According to your question, your company culture has a 8:30 - 5:10pm work time.

I'd also like to mention that, depending on the work place, the lunch break can be between one and two hours, and is not counted as work time. You did not mention how long it takes in your company.

In the different companies where I've been, the arrival time was not that important, as long as it was before 9:15 - 9:30. What counted and was "seen" was the departure time.

What can you do?

Non confronting solution

If you have activities, at home, that you can do in the morning as well as the evening, you could move them in your day, to go to work at the same time as your team.

Or you can do the opposite, and use the end of your day for easy/not important stuff: I used to use the last hour of my day to manage my emails, do administrative reporting, and proof-read documents. You could also read technical literature which is interesting to you, and not directly relevant to your job during this timeframe.

Negotiating

You can try to negotiate with your direct management. You can probably ask if you can, for example, reduce the time of your lunch break to leave earlier, but please note that leaving at 5pm is already quite early by industry standards in Paris. It could be interesting to check how efficient you are perceived to be, relative to the other people in your team.

You will probably get the answer, though, that they are trying not to do any exceptions. I would avoid escalating to HR.

Ignoring the comments and working 35h

If you only work for 35h (perceived by your management) a week, you will not get fired, but it is likely that your reputation could suffer, and that it would be harder to get recommandation letters.

Is this the case everywhere in France?

No. One big exception to this rule are pure research labs (CNRS, INRIA, ...), where you can manage your schedule the way you want as long as you do the work. I have some colleagues arriving at 11am and leaving at 8pm, some arriving at 9am, leaving at 4:30pm, with a very short lunch break, some who work from home when they need to without having to do anything else than send an email on the morning of their absence. R&D is a mix, sometimes more industry culture, sometimes more research culture.

Answer 6

I personally hate sitting around trying to appease a clock but is this what is expected at a "real/corporate" work place? All my life I have spent in university settings where people don't "time" me.

This depends heavily on where you work as it goes directly towards company culture.

I was working as an operations manager at an internet services firm - we had "office hours", but work was done throughout the day and many times during the night. Often you would see some staff staying over even after the official COB (Close Of Business).

These days I work in a bank and here they are very strict about timing. Everyone leaves at the same time and arrives at the same time the next day. Unless your job specifically requires, you can't even enter the building after hours nevermind work.

For my position, I have access to the building but rarely does work happen outside published hours - and if it does, its counted as overtime and paid at the next cycle.

Your "real work place" depends very much the industry you are in. In regulated industries (airlines, healthcare, banking, etc.) timing is strict and you are not expected to burn the midnight oil unless its part of your normal job role.

I have also worked in companies where there is no defined office hours - everyone has access to the facilities at all times, you can come and go as you please - but your deliverable time lines are strict.

I'm like you - I also hate sitting around waiting for the clock to tick over, but at the same time I can appreciate the discipline that comes with having regimented hours of work.

Answer 7

Is there anything wrong with leaving work early when you know that not much productive is going to happen in the last three-quarters of the hour or so?

Much of it depends on the industry in which you work, and the office culture at your work. It also depends on what you mean by "wrong" here.

If you mean in the legal sense, you need to become familiar with local laws. That's not something we can help with in this forum.

If you mean "is there anything wrong with choosing to ignore the corporate culture and norms", that's a more difficult discussion. Some individuals in a unique and safe position can deliberately ignore the norms and get away with it. Most cannot.

If you mean "Can I decide to leave early when my boss specifically tells me to work longer?", then you need to determine what kind of outcome is possible, and what kind of outcome you desire.

• If you cannot be fired no matter what you do, and if a potentially poor job review doesn't impact you, then it's not "wrong" to leave whenever you choose.
• If you can be fired but don't care, then it's not "wrong" to leave whenever you choose.
• If you can be fired and you do care, then you should talk with your boss, explain your limited attention span, and ask if there can be some accommodation

You indicate that "not much productive is going to happen in the last three-quarters of the hour", but that's something you can change. Being "spent" is a matter of opinion, not fact. Even if you are tired, there are productive things that you can accomplish - ask your boss to suggest tasks that can be successfully completed in a tired state.

is this what is expected at a "real/corporate" work place?

At least in my part of the world, there are very few professional, salaried positions where 35 hours per week (or even 39 hours per week) is the norm. And while many jobs have some flexibility regarding the starting and ending time of those hours, many professional positions expect a higher level of commitment.

In France, it may be different.

Answer 8

In some places, and this seems particularly true of France in my experience, working to the expected hours, behaviour and culture of your workplace is seemingly more important than what you actually do while you are there.

If they are convinced that you are a slacker for leaving at 17:00 rather than staying til 17:10, then you either accept that or change your hours to work the 8:30 - 17:10 that the unwritten rules would seem to indicate. If they insist on 39 hrs/week, then do that as well and take your RTT days when allowed.