We have an employee who (in addition to his normal working week of 37.5 hours) has done an extra 66 hours over time this month, all having been signed of buy his manager. He has signed the company “opt out” agreement but I am concerned that he may be putting himself under a lot of stress. It is all desk top work but I get the feeling he would do more of required.

I’m finding hard to understand the working time Regs and how they would apply to employees willingly doing way more than expected ( I believe the hours can be measured over an average length of time in weeks rather than days)

First, and despite many people saying they have opt out clauses on the WTD, my understanding is opt out clauses in contracts have no standing and are effectively worthless.

As to the amount of overtime, as well as points made by H14, the Hrs need to be calculated as an average over 17weeks, so although your person may have put in 66Hrs overtime in a month (average 54Hrs per week over 4 weeks) if he does that as a one off for a project or other reason then stays at 37Hrs the rest of the time the averaged Hrs rapidly drops within acceptable limits (41.3 Hrs av over 17 weeks) (Note, counting on fingers and toes so if the maths is out so be it)

This is taken from the WTD.

Weekly rest period
11.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2), an adult worker is entitled to an uninterrupted rest period of
not less than 24 hours in each seven-day period during which he works for his employer.
(2) If his employer so determines, an adult worker shall be entitled to either—
(a) two uninterrupted rest periods each of not less than 24 hours in each 14-day period during
which he works for his employer; or
(b) one uninterrupted rest period of not less than 48 hours in each such 14-day period, in place of the entitlement provided for in paragraph (1).

The employee can work 12 consecutive days as long as they get 2 days off.

Agreed, it depends on the employee. If an employee is stressed by the extra hours then they should be limited in the number of extra hours they can do.

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel

The key word in the original post is “stress”. It does not really matter how many hours the person is working, just if they are suffering excess stress. If they are then then the employers is expositing them to a hazard and not managing the risk appropriately. If you are concerned look at this HSE page http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/index.htm for guidance.