Britons work billions of hours in unpaid overtime: Is it any wonder their productivity is so poor?

TUC research puts the cost at £35bn in 2019 – and workers who put in extra hours are just starting to get paid this year, reports James Moore

Frances O’Grady says workers should be spending more time with their family and friends (PA)

If you want an example of why reducing workers’ rights is so dangerous, consider what went on at Sports Direct.

The company used to insist on searching its warehouse workers on the way out, ostensibly to prevent them from stealing stock. But the time this took wasn’t paid for.

It was, in effect, stolen from them. It also potentially took them below the minimum wage.

It all ended in an almighty scandal, and the company’s procedures were reformed. Sports Direct now even has a worker director on the board, one of just handful of UK employers to have taken such a step.

But such practices still go on.

According to the Trades Union Congress, employers benefited to the tune of £35bn through their staff putting in unpaid overtime last year. Some might call that theft too, and if so the sheer scale makes it the grandest of grand larcenies.

The organisation’s research revealed that more than 5 million UK workers worked 2 billion hours without being paid for them in 2019.

If the pattern is repeated this year, they will have only started making money on Friday. Previously they were racking up unpaid hours.

But did their employers actually benefit from all this? It might look that way, until you ask how many of these extra hours were productive hours?

There surely comes a point when the exhaustion caused by all of this unpaid labour starts to impact on the quality of work done during the hours for which people are actually getting paid.

We already know that the UK’s productivity is miserable by the standards of developed nations. The average British worker produces 10-15 per cent less than, say, the average German worker.

Last month, academics from the universities of Sussex and Loughborough published research showing that the slowdown in Britain’s productivity growth over the past decade is the worst since the start of the industrial revolution 250 years ago.

It should be said that the phenomenon isn’t unique to the UK. But its performance is particularly bad, and to the extent that it is putting a brake on economic growth and living standards.

It’s the sort of thing that really ought to be an embarrassment for the government. I’m just not sure the current one is capable of feeling that.

Amid much scratching of heads, economists have come up with various suggestions for how to address this country’s “productivity puzzle”: upskilling the national workforce, boosting investment and suchlike.

Good ideas. But smarter people management might also help.

Workers are more likely to give their best if they are well rested and ready to perform. Ending the presenteeism that leads to too many people feeling the need to spend hours on end showing their face while not doing very much would help with that.

It might also lead to less sickness. Well-rested workers are healthy workers. QED.

This is recognised in a range of fields. “Load management” has caused controversy in America’s National Basketball Association this year. But LA Clippers fans surely won’t complain if a fit and healthy Kawhi Leonard​, who’s load has been managed, delivers them their first championship.

As TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady opined: “Overworking staff hurts productivity, leaves workers’ stressed and exhausted and eats into time that should be spent with family and friends.”

It’s a zero-sum game.

The potential impact on productivity through giving backward-looking employers free reign to demand that employees put in unpaid overtime is one very good argument not to allow the erosion of workers’ rights, already relatively weak by European standards.

Another is that it’s simply a question of justice. No one should have to work without being paid. It should go without saying.