Company allegedly made staff stay after working hours despite finishing work ahead of schedule

SINGAPORE: A former employee, who chose to remain anonymous, revealed that her previous company allegedly made staff stay after working hours despite finishing work ahead of schedule.

“I was caught playing mobile games in the office by my manager. It was almost 9pm, and I had to stay past hours because I did not ‘clock enough hours’ for the month,” she shared.

She noted that the company imposes a mandatory monthly hour requirement, explaining that she often left early to pick up her children from preschool after finishing her tasks early.

“My KPI was 200% without OT,” she explained. “I also helped my colleagues finish their work, to the point there was nothing else for me to do at 9:00 pm.”

Despite getting her tasks done and consistently exceeding performance expectations, she claimed the company insisted she stay late to meet their monthly hour quota. This led her to play games to pass the time just to meet the company’s rigid hour-tracking policy.

She eventually decided to leave the company after feeling overlooked for promotion, as her manager “chose to promote his good friend” instead of her because she had less years in the team.

“Despite my 200% KPI, he still sees me leaving the office early to fulfil my motherly duties as working less than his lunch buddy friend at 70% KPI,” she lamented.

Her story sparked a flurry of responses online, with others sharing similar tales of perceived unfairness in promotion decisions.

“My ex-manager was different. She would make us OT every weekend, then pretend to give us comp time off,” one commenter recalled.

Others questioned the fairness of promotion criteria, with one stating, “Doesn’t seem like this manager values task completion, more on presence”

Another speculated that perhaps the manager probably already pre-selected who to promote and was only looking for a valid reason to do so.

Despite the contentious reactions, the former employee has found a positive outcome. She shared, “I started my own business. Now I drop off and pick up my kids whenever I like and don’t have to pretend to work on paper until 9pm just for some clock rule.” /TISG

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