Thank you Neil Harvey. Your letter was like a breath of fresh air, and I could not agree more (Working 9 to 5, letters.computing.co.uk). You get what you pay for in life, and if a company wants "x" amount of work done, they should simply pay for it.

As Neil says, your employer is not a charity, so why should they get work done for free? And if they can't afford more staff, then  perhaps they need to expand a little more slowly, prioritise work differently, deal with a bigwig's over-sized pay packet, find and fix  inefficiencies or perhaps  admit that they're a hopeless case and shut up shop for the good of us all.

Any firm where overtime is commonplace should take a long hard look at itself, and work out if they are
under-staffed or inefficient.

Regular overtime is simply encouraging staff to live  unbalanced lives. If you  want worn-out, unhappy staff, possessing the decision-making precision of a small child, this is the way  to run things.

Instead, I hope you want  to run your company in a sustainable, efficient manner. You could even think about training your staff - another topic entirely.

The degree to which a company serves - yes, serves - its staff and customers  determines its value. Some companies get this so wrong they absolutely deserve to go to the wall, and I sincerely hope they do.

Phil Hackett