Question for those working for large corporations

[Questioner]

Does anyone else work for a company where your "utilization" (billable hours worked) has to equal or exceed greater than 100% so that when you take vacation it doesn't negatively impact your "utilization"? I'm also a "salaried" employee meaning that I don't get paid any extra if I work more than 40 hours a week (50 is fairly average).

For example, if there are 52 weeks in a year, and a person gets two weeks vacation, if they only worked 40 hours per week for the other 50 weeks of the year they would be negatively impacted by taking vacation.... but if they work in another 80 hours during the remaining 50 weeks in the year, then their utilization would be back to 100%. These statistics are also impacted negatively by holidays, training classes, having more than two weeks vacation in a year, etc. If a person gets 4 weeks vacation in a year, he/she has to work an extra 160 hours during the remaining 48 weeks in the year to maintain 100% utilization, assuming that all 40 of the hours each week are considered "billable" hours and charged to a client.

I'm just curious as to how prevalent this is in today's job market. I've accepted it as something that I can't do anything about (especially given the size of the company I work for) and have factored in the "you're just lucky to have a job" thing.

[missourimary]

I think it depends on the job. I've been salaried. There were times that I worked well over 40 hours/week. There were other times that I finished early (no, I couldn't go home early).

Working salaried employees 50+ hours a week 50 weeks a year may be more common now, with companies cutting staff or refusing to hire new personnel to fill slots that others have left.

[commonsense]

I work for a large company (1200 locations ) but it's hourly plus comission on special ordered sales.
Our main complaint currently is that with the economy slower hours get cut, sooooooooo there are few, if any,part time hours. That means the fulltime staff has to do it all!

As you said, most of us are glad to be working. And I like my job, but the work load is shifting ----

[geekette]

I work for a very large corporation (~200,000 employees) and when I was salaried, I never heard of this "utilization." Now I'm hourly, which is fine for me. (Thousands of people got reclassified from salary to hourly as the result of a lawsuit, and I'm talking about programmers, systems analysts, etc., not low-paid at all!) When the end of the day comes, I'm outta there. If my employer (which, I must say, for being an evil empire has been pretty good to me) wants me to do more work, it must pay me for it.

[jagwinn]

We are issued a 'bank account' or Paid Time Account, of 160 hours yearly. This account pays all your holidays, plant shutdowns and sick days.
If you use all the account, you are penalized in attendance for time missed without coverage.

Not a bad deal, but we work 10 hour days, and the account will pay only 8 hours on a day off. Hence, a day off means only 38 hrs. that week.

.

[canam]

This is why unions were started, What a joke ! Why even take a "vacation" in effect there is no such thing .Unbeleivable !! You gotta be in a" right to work for less state" down south somwhere. Also sounds like wal mart stunts.

[missourimary]

One thing about it... when I love my work and believe in what I'm doing, I can work 50 hours and it seems like 30. When I don't care for my job or don't believe what I'm doing makes a difference or matters, a 40 hour week can seem like 60.

May not work that way for everyone, but it has seemed to hold true for me.