Same in small companies. In our company of 14 people, my last HR meeting had the officer dismissing my mention of doing 30-60 minutes unpaid daily overtime as 'it's a small company, that happens'.
They were trying to nail me into a contract doing even more unpaid work: 'Sometimes that happens in a small company' -> 'Yes, I do the in-house IT, and it's part of the job, but I'm letting you know that it's every day' -> 'Yes, sometimes that happens' -> 'Every day is 'sometimes'?' -> 'Yes, sometimes that happens...'.
The other great comment was 'You have to expect a little overtime when you're on a good salary'. My salary is right on the national average wage - neither good nor bad by definition.
...you have HR meetings in a company of 14? It sounds like the culture is what's causing that, not the company size. I've worked in companies of 50 that don't have "HR" people (of course, they have people who cut checks, etc. but they didn't create and enforce crazy policies like that!).
I'm in London in the UK, do a 37 hour week, earn $80k equiv, work from home 4 days a week and live about 5 miles from the company (just over an hour scenic river walk or cycle).
Stop selling yourselves into slavery, grow some balls and either get paid for what you do or stop working so much.
This should just depend on whether you're an exempt or non exempt employee. Most IT professionals are classified as exempt meaning they do not qualify for overtime.
If you're paid hourly, or work as a contractor, you should be paid for all your hours.
I don't really care about the overtime, as I do it because I see it as necessary to the job, but I do care about having extra unpaid hours unilaterally tacked on to my working week without any discussion of remuneration. Or even a raise to match inflation.
