Hours & Conditions
Overtime, unsocial hours and the pay that is not really extra
Premium rates compensate for a real cost. Whether they compensate enough is a calculation people rarely do.
Sorcha Byrne
Contributing writer, Payday Stories
Sorcha writes about hours, shifts and contract terms.
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13 articles
Side Income
The freelance rate that actually replaces a salary
A day rate has to cover holiday, sickness, pension, admin and the weeks with no work.
Side Income
The cost base nobody counts in a side income
Subscriptions, fees, insurance and equipment quietly set a floor the activity has to clear before it earns anything.
Side Income
When a side income is ready to replace the salary
The tests are about stability and cover, not about whether the monthly total has matched a payslip once.
Hours & Conditions
How holiday pay is calculated when your hours vary
Averaging over a reference period is the usual method, and the choice of period decides the amount.
Hours & Conditions
On-call, standby and being paid for time you cannot use
Time spent available for work is not free time, and how it is paid varies more than almost any other arrangement.
Hours & Conditions
Sleep-ins, night shifts and the hours paid at a different rate
Overnight work has been one of the most contested areas of pay, and the answers differ sharply between countries.
Hours & Conditions
Where minutes disappear in a time and attendance system
Clocking systems encode rules about rounding, grace periods and breaks that almost nobody reads.
Hours & Conditions
The four-day week and what happens to the pay
The arrangements sold under the same name differ fundamentally in whether pay and hours are reduced.
Side Income
When a side income outgrows working as an individual
At some point the informal arrangement stops fitting. The signals are administrative, financial and legal, and they rarely arrive…
Hours & Conditions
Split shifts and the twelve-hour day that pays for six
A pattern with a long unpaid gap in the middle consumes an entire day for part of a day's pay. The gap is where the value goes.
Hours & Conditions
Understaffing, and the work that never becomes extra pay
A vacancy left open does not reduce the work; it redistributes it. The redistribution is free to the employer and expensive to…
Hours & Conditions
The salaried job where overtime is priced at zero
A contract that says hours may vary according to the needs of the business is a contract with no ceiling. The extra time is free by…