Overtime

Overtime is work done by hourly employees beyond the regular work hours per week. Any work over forty hours per week for an hourly worker is considered overtime. Overtime and overtime compensation are provided for under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. It is required under the FLSA that employers pay time-and-a-half to employees working more than forty hours per week or 150 percent of the worker's salary for those hours exceeding the weekly average.

EXEMPT AND NON-EXEMPT EMPLOYEES

U.S. labor law distinguishes between "exempt" and "non-exempt" employees regarding overtime. Exempt employees do not have to be paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week. According to the FLSA, members of this class of employee include workers "employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity (including any employee employed in the capacity of academic administrative personnel or teacher in elementary or secondary schools) or in the capacity of outside [salesperson]." Any worker employed in the above categories who meets Department of Labor salary and duty tests is exempt from receiving overtime pay regardless of the number of hours he or she works.

In some businesses, employees attend to a wide variety of tasks that may include a blend of "exempt" and "non-exempt" duties. In these instances, their overtime status is dictated by their "primary duty" to their employer. Time spent on each task is an important but not decisive factor in determining exemption status. Instead, federal regulations dictate that the decisive factor is "the relative importance of the [exempt] duties as compared with other types of duties … and the relationship between [the employee's] salary and the wages paid other employees for the kind of nonexempt work performed." For instance, the Code of Federal Regulations notes that "in some departments, or subdivisions of an establishment, an employee has broad responsibilities similar to those of the owner or manager of the establishment, but generally spends more than 50 percent of his time in production or sales work. While engaged in such work he supervises other employees, directs the work of warehouse and deliverymen, approves advertising, orders merchandise, handles customer complaints, authorizes payment of bills, or performs other management duties as the day-to-day operations require. He will be considered to have management as his primary duty." The Code of Federal Regulations also includes tests that can be used to determine the primary duties of other "white-collar" workers, including executives, professionals, computer programmers, and administrative personnel.

On April 23, 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor introduced new regulations relating to exemptions. An article in Healthcare Financial Management offered the following summary and the rationale behind the rule change. "The new rule, effective August 23, 2004, updates the regulations defining exemptions for 'white collar' executive, administrative, and professional employees. One of the most significant changes included in the rule involves the minimum salary level requirements, last updated almost 30 years ago. According to the rule, overtime protection is guaranteed for all workers earning less than $455 per week ($23,660 annually). Under original FLSA regulations, the minimum salary level for exemption was $155 per week ($8,060 annually)."

DECIDING TO USE OVERTIME

Businesses with seasonal peaks, with quotas and deadlines, or with the possibility of rush orders, will at some point probably not be able to meet staffing needs with the regular hours worked by employees. It is at these crisis points that overtime becomes an invaluable tool for the employer.

Most business experts, however, counsel owners and managers to use overtime sparingly if possible. The ideal use of overtime is when employees are willing to work longer hours for increased pay, and the employer needs qualified, trained individuals who will not need excessive supervision while tackling an increased work load. An employer should not, however, rely on employees working many more hours per week to routinely make up for work not accomplished during the regular work week. If this is the case—if overtime becomes essential to the performance of a business, even during regular operating scenarios—there may be other factors, such as poor compensation, morale, or inadequate staffing levels, to be considered.

One serious consideration often cited in the routine use of overtime is the effect it can have on employees' regular production. Increased work hours during one period may lead to increased absenteeism during others, due to family commitments that were put off during "crunch" periods or to illness exacerbated by stress. Family conflicts are also a common consequence and manifest themselves in higher levels of stress, alcohol and drug use, and absenteeism. In addition, employee productivity during regular business hours often undergoes a major downturn after periods of extensive overtime.

All overtime should be authorized by a manager or supervisor, preferably in writing. Consideration should be given to tracking the work accomplished during overtime hours; this ensures that employees are continuing to be productive at the increased pay rate, even with the stress of longer hours and increased sales or other pressures. Tracking what work is done on overtime will also aid the owner or manager of a business to better plan for staffing needs in the future.

ALTERNATIVES TO OVERTIME PAY

Because overtime can become very expensive, and can sometimes be draining for regular employees, some businesses have embraced alternate plans of human resource management.

Expanding workforce size. The first determination to be made is whether the amount of overtime used throughout the year is enough to justify the hiring of additional staff. This step should be very carefully considered, however, because while overtime is expensive, so are the costs (salary, payroll taxes, social security, benefits) associated with hiring additional employees.

Temps. Another alternative to overtime is to utilize temporary workers. This can be done independently by the owner or manager, or through a temporary employment agency. Depending on the task (and how much training and supervision is required), the temporary employee can save businesses significant overtime expenses. This alternative can be particularly attractive if increased staffing needs are seasonal and predictable, so that temporary employees can be hired in advance.

Stock options. Many employers have begun offering their workers stock options as compensation in lieu of actual overtime pay. In 1999 employer rights to offer stock options were codified into law with the passage and signing of the Worker Economic Opportunity Act. This act amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to exclude profits from stock options or purchase plans from the calculation of non-exempt employee's overtime if various requirements are met (such as full disclosure of terms and voluntary participation). Supporters of this new law contend that it will allow employers to offer stock options as incentives to hourly workers while safeguarding employees against businesses that might try to disseminate risky stock options in place of overtime pay.

EMPLOYEE REACTIONS TO OVERTIME

Many employees welcome the opportunity to augment their regular salaries with overtime pay. Some businesses can effectively use overtime as a kind of voluntary bonus: if the employees are willing to put in the added hours, they will be rewarded with increased pay. Because of the strong positive feelings many employees have about the opportunity to earn overtime pay, employers should carefully weigh the pros and cons of hiring temporary help; regular employees will recognize the loss of overtime, and morale may suffer, particularly if overtime has become an integral part of the business cycle.

But the prevailing feeling among many business owners and executives is that employees are placing ever greater value on leisure/family time, and that they are willing to make some sacrifices in the realm of compensation in order to enjoy personal interests. In addition, analysts point out that families that have both parents in the work force may not value overtime as much as employees of the past. Employers should remain sensitive to employees' needs and responsibilities outside of the workplace, and should recognize that employees may not always be willing to volunteer for overtime.

Mandatory Overtime

In the medical field especially, affecting nurses particularly owing to shortages in this healthcare specialization, mandatory overtime is often imposed on employees. Hospital like to staff 12-hour shifts with the consequence that work-day overtime (at minimum) becomes mandatory. Lonnie Golden and Barbara Wiens-Tuers, writing for Labor Studies Journal, pointed out that the requirement extends more widely beyond health care. Citing the 2002 General Social Survey (sponsored by the National Science Foundation) they reported that 28 percent of full time workers were exposed to and 21 percent were actually required to work overtime involuntarily. Golden and Wiens-Tuers pointed out that collective bargaining agreements have failed to curb mandatory overtime effectively enough—thus stimulating seven states to curb the phenomenon by law or regulation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

de Graaf, John. Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America. Berrett-Koehler, 2003.

"DOL Rule Enhances 'White Collar' Exemption Regulations." Healthcare Financial Management. June 2004.

Federal Register. Department of Labor. "Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees; Final Rule." 23 April 2004.

Golden, Lonnie and Barbara Wiens-Tuers. "Mandatory Overtime Work in the United States: Who, Where, and What?." Labor Studies Journal. Spring 2005.

Hart, Robert. The Economics of Overtime Working. University of Cambridge, 2004.

Luna, Michael. "Bedside Nurses and Managers Speak Out on Mandatory Overtime." RN. January 2006.

Schiff, Lisa. "Two More States Say No to Mandatory Overtime." RN. April 2004.

U.S. Department of Labor. "Fair Pay." Available from http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/main.htm. Retrieved on 25 May 2006.

                            Hillstrom, Northern Lights

                             updated by Magee, ECDI

Overtime

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Overtime work is a historical, legal, sociocultural, and economic construction. It typically refers to instances where an employee is working hours of labor in a given week (or per day or month) beyond some “standard,” “regular,” or “normal” hours. Overtime may be defined in terms of either national laws or workplace culture. The notion of overtime has changed over time, as these standards or norms have themselves changed. Indeed, laws place pressure on conventional norms and on the actual number of working hours (and vice versa). This explains why the connotation of overtime differs by country, time period, workplace culture, type of job, and employment contract.

In the United States, overtime work became codified as part of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA was enacted both to counter the Depression era’s prolonged unemployment and the long, grueling workdays and workweeks for wage workers that predominated during the industrialization phase of capitalism prior to the 1930s. Unlike European countries’ statutory limits, the United States and other Anglo countries tend to apply only monetary incentives, the time-and-a-half pay premium requirement for hours worked by employees in excess of forty in a given week period to enforce the standard.

About one in five workers in the United States works extra hours for extra pay. Where there is no legally required pay premium for hours beyond forty hours, for those in exempt managerial, administrative, and professional jobs, the definition of what constitutes overtime work becomes hazier. About three in ten workers work longer than forty hours per week. More than one in five employees work extra hours because it is required by their employer. According to Juliet Schor’s The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (1993), there is evidence that the long-run trend toward shorter average workweeks reversed course in the mid- to late-twentieth century in the United States. In 2000 Ronald Hetrick found that overtime hours in manufacturing among hourly workers has risen. However, average hours have not so much risen as hours have polarized. A greater proportion work either fifty or more hours at the same time as a rising proportion works short hours. In addition, in 2005 Jared Bernstein and Karen Kornbluh found the rise in working hours has occurred more within families or dual-income households than among individuals. According to an article published by Daniel Hamermesh in Industrial and Labor Relations Review (2000), longer hours cannot be attributed to a steady replacement of hourly paid with salaried jobs.

Any trends in overtime work may be traced to the economics of labor demand and labor supply. Employers’ demand for longer hours is driven by their response to economic incentives and market pressures to drive down labor costs per hour. Employers will substitute hours for employees when the fixed costs of hiring, training, and employee benefits escalate. Rising hours will be reinforced if workers prefer to allocate more time toward paid work activities because of the net income effects of falling real hourly wages, rising job insecurity, or rising consumer debt. In addition, the diminished presence, weakening, and changing priorities of the labor movement has removed an institutional pressure that once leaned against rising work hours. Unionized or not, overtime for hourly workers has often become a rationed privilege, where the legal or contracted pay premium has become an incentive to supply more hours of labor.

Nevertheless, the repercussions of overtime—usually unpaid hours for salaried workers—take its toll not only on individuals, but also on families, workplaces, and society. Studies confirm that overtime work is a dualedged sword, providing additional income but also adverse repercussions due to the heightened risk of injury, illness, accident, and work-family time conflict, via fatigue and stress. Such risks are often magnified when overtime is imposed rather than voluntary. Early-twenty-first-century controversies in research involve the appropriate degree of annual averaging of work hours and the extent to which curbing overtime would spur employment. Policy proposals that attempt to alter the framework for regulating or enforcing overtime laws, in the United States and elsewhere, become controversial. This includes the scope of which jobs are to be covered by the FLSA’s overtime pay premium, limiting mandatory overtime work, and whether compensation for overtime hours should be in the form of future promised compensatory time off rather than immediate pay.

SEE ALSO Capitalism; Labor; Leisure; Work Week; Working Day, Length of

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bernstein, Jared, and Karen Kornbluh. 2005. Running Faster to Stay in Place: The Growth of Family Work Hours and Incomes. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute and New America Foundation.

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Golden, Lonnie, and Barbara Wiens-Tuers. 2006. To Your Happiness? Overtime Work, Worker Happiness, and Satisfaction. Journal of Socio-Economics (35) 2: 382–397.

Hamermesh, Daniel. 2000. 12 Million Salaried Workers Are Missing. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 55: 649–675.

Hart, Robert A. 2004. The Economics of Overtime Working. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Hetrick, Ronald. 2000. Analyzing the Upward Surge in Overtime Hours. Monthly Labor Review 123 (February): 30–33.

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Jacobs, Jerry A., and Kathleen Gerson. 2004. The Time Divide: Work, Family, and Gender Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Nyland, Chris. 1989. Reduced Working Time and the Management of Production Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

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Schor, Juliet B. 1993. The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure. New York: Basic Books.

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Yaniv, Gideon. 1995. Burnout, Absenteeism, and the Overtime Decision. Journal of Economic Psychology 16 (2): 297–309.

Lonnie Golden

o·ver·time / ˈōvərˌtīm/ • n. time in addition to what is normal, as time worked beyond one's scheduled working hours: fewer opportunities for overtime| [as adj.] an overtime ban. ∎  payment for such extra work. ∎  extra time played at the end of a game that is tied at the end of the regulation time: they lost in overtime.• adv. in addition to normal working hours: they were working overtime to fulfill a big order | fig. his brain was working overtime.