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American Heritage Dictionary:
o·ver·time |
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overtime |
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Gale Encyclopedia of Small Business:
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 under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. It is required under the FLSA that employers pay employees working more that forty hours per week time-and-a-half, 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 they work.
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 most relevant 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.
Employers should regularly review their staff classifications to make certain that all workers in their employ are properly classified. "As part of that process," wrote Jeffrey Pollack in CPA Journal, "employers should develop written job descriptions that delineate the duties of each position; the employee's actual duties—not the job description—will be the controlling factor."
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. Indeed, Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations conducted a late 1990s study that found that employees who work at least 11 and up to 20 hours over overtime weekly showed a much greater incidence of severe conflicts in the work-family realm. These conflicts manifested themselves in higher levels of stress, alcohol and drug use, and absenteeism. In addition, some analysts believe that 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 fact, studies show that as many as 10 million hourly workers in the United States had acquired stock options by the late 1990s. In 1999 employer rights to offer such 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.
Further Reading:
Boyett, Joseph H., and Henry P. Conn. Workplace 2000. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Crawford, Dan. "Option Law Frees Employers from Costly Overtime Issues." Business First-Columbus. July 7, 2000.
Employees: How to Find and Pay Them. U.S. Small Business Administration, n.a.
Pollack, Jeffrey D. "Overtime and the White-Collar Exemptions." CPA Journal. October 2000.
Walsh, Mary Williams. "As Overtime Rises, Fatigue Becomes Labor Issue." New York Times. September 17, 2000.
Weiss, Donald H. Fair, Square, and Legal: Safe Hiring, Managing & Firing Practices to Keep You & Your Company Out of Court. New York: AMACOM, 1991.
The number of hours worked on a building project in excess of the number agreed upon for any single day or for any one week.
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They were all asked to work overtime to get the project down as quickly as possible.
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Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Overtime |
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The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (May 2010) |
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Academic disciplines
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Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. Normal hours may be determined in several ways:
Most nations have overtime labor laws designed to dissuade or prevent employers from forcing their employees to work excessively long hours. These laws may take into account other considerations than the humanitarian, such as preserving the health of workers so that they may continue to be productive, or increasing the overall level of employment in the economy. One common approach to regulating overtime is to require employers to pay workers at a higher hourly rate for overtime work. Companies may choose to pay workers higher overtime pay even if not obliged to do so by law, particularly if they believe that they face a backward bending supply curve of labour.
Overtime pay rates can cause workers to work longer hours than they would at a flat hourly rate. Overtime laws, attitudes toward overtime and hours of work vary greatly from country to country and between different economic sectors.
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Time off in lieu; compensatory time; or comp time refers to a type of work schedule arrangement that allows (or requires) workers to take time off instead of, or in addition to, receiving overtime pay. A worker may receive overtime pay plus equal time off for each hour worked on certain agreed days, such as bank holidays.
In the United States, such arrangements are currently legal in the public sector but not in the private sector.[1]
For example, non-exempt workers must receive at least one and one half times their normal hourly wage for every hour worked beyond 40 hours in a work week. For example, workers who clock 48 hours in one week would receive the pay equivalent to 52 hours of work (40 hours + 8 hours at 1.5 times the normal hourly wage). That would permit the worker in this example to forgo the 12 hours of overtime pay and instead take 12 paid hours off at some future date.
In Australia, such arrangements both in the private and public sector are common.
In some cases, particularly when employees are represented by a labor union, overtime may be paid at a higher rate than 1.5 times the hourly pay. In some factories, for example, if workers are required to work on a Sunday, they may be paid twice their regular rate i.e.(double time).
In the United States, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937 applies to employees in industries engaged in, or producing goods for, interstate commerce. The FLSA establishes a standard work week of 40 hours for certain kinds of workers, and mandates payment for overtime hours to those workers of one and one-half times the workers' normal rate of pay for any time worked above 40 hours. The law creates two broad categories of employees, those who are "exempt" from the regulation and those who are "non-exempt". Under the law, employers are not required to pay exempt employees overtime but must do so for non-exempt employees. Independent contractors are not considered employees and are not protected by the FLSA. Several factors determine whether a worker is an employee, who might be entitled to overtime compensation, or an independent contractor, who would not be so entitled. The employment agreement stating that a party is an independent contractor does not make it necessarily so. The nature of a job determines whether an employee is entitled to overtime pay, not employment status or the field of work.[2]
Classes of workers who are exempt from the regulation include certain types of administrative, professional, and executive employees. To qualify as an administrative, professional, or executive employee and therefore not be entitled to overtime, three tests must be passed based on salary basis, duties, and salary level. The tests vary between administrative, professional, and executive employees based on their different duties and salary levels. There are many other classes of workers who may be exempt including outside salespeople, certain agricultural employees, certain live-in employees, and certain transportation employees. Employees can neither waive their FLSA protections nor abridge them by contract.
An employer may not retaliate[3] against an employee for filing a complaint or instituting a proceeding based on the FLSA. An employer that does retaliate would be liable under the Fair Labor Standards Act Section 216(b) for equitable relief including reinstatement, promotion, payment of lost wages, and payment of liquidated damages. Acts of retaliation include terminating employment, disrupting the workplace, threats, acts of physical violence, and constructive discharge.
Out of approximately 120 million American workers, nearly 50 million are exempt from overtime laws (U.S Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, 1998). In 2004, the United States was 7th out of 24 OECD countries in terms of annual working hours per worker. (See Working time for a complete listing.)
On August 23, 2004, President George W. Bush and the Department of Labor proposed changes to regulations governing implementation of the law. According to one study, the changes would have had significant impact on the number of workers covered by overtime laws and have exempted several million additional workers.[4] The Bush administration maintained that the practical impact on working Americans would be minimal and that the changes would help clarify an outdated regulation. In particular, the new rules would have allowed more companies to offer flextime to their workers in lieu of overtime. In September 2004, both chambers of Congress voted to block the Labor Department from putting these regulatory changes into effect.
The state of California's overtime laws involve overlapping statutes, regulations, and precedents that govern the compensation of employees in California. While the governing federal law is the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 USC 201-219), California overtime law is codified in provisions of the California Labor Code and in Wage orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission[5] Because there are two sources of applicable law (federal and state), a California employer must comply with both.
In California, based on California Labor Code 1171, only an employment relationship is required for overtime rules to apply. Under the California Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders, an "employer" is "any person ... who directly or indirectly, or through an agent or any other person, employs or exercises control over wages, hours, or working conditions of any person." Under the California Labor Code, an "employee" is "[any] person, including aliens and minors, rendering actual service in any business for an employer, whether gratuitously or for wages or pay, whether the wages or pay are measured by the standard of time, piece, task, commission, or other method of calculation, and whether the service is rendered on a commission, concessionaire, or other basis." Independent contractors are not employees covered by overtime laws, so it is important to determine if a worker is an independent contractor or an employee.
California overtime laws differ from federal overtime laws in many respects. Foremost, pursuant to California Labor Code Section 510, non-exempt employees must be compensated at one and a half times the regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of eight hours in a workday, 40 hours in a workweek and the first eight hours of a seventh consecutive workday. Employees in California are entitled to double-time for working more than twelve hour workdays or more than eight hours on the seventh consecutive workday of a single workweek. Under federal law there are only 40 hour weekly overtime limits. This eight hour overtime limit in California frequently gives rise to wage-and-hour litigation for violations of state, but not federal, labor laws.
For example, "comp time" schemes, where employers tell employees that since they worked 10 hours on Monday they can work 6 hours on Tuesday, are illegal because even though the employees are not working more than 40 hours for the purposes of overtime compensation under federal law, they are working more than 8 hours for purposes of California overtime law and rounding the 6 and 10 hour workdays to two 8 hour workdays would cheat the employee out of two hours of overtime pay.
Perhaps the biggest difference between California and federal overtime law relates to the administrative exemption's "primarily engaged" in duties that meet the test for the exemption requirement, such as duties that involve exercising independent discretion and judgment as set forth in the controversial Order No. 4. Whereas under the Fair Labor Standards Act "primarily engaged" does not necessarily mean at least half, under California wage-and-hour laws, less than half of exempt duties automatically eliminates the overtime exemption.
Directives issued by the European Union must be incorporated into law by member states.
Directives 93/104/EC (1993), 2000/34/EC (2000), which limited working hours, were consolidated into 2003/88/EC (2003). Employers and employees could agree to opt out, but this exception is to be tightened up, after the EU reported evidence that the opt-out was being abused in the UK, in a new proposal for a directive expected to be adopted in early 2006, and adopted into the law of member states within 2 years.
The directives require:
The directives apply to:
Exemptions:
The conditions attached to the worker's individual consent are somewhat modified by the proposed new directive: member states may allow workers to opt out from the limitation of hours worked so long as this is expressly allowed under a collective agreement (e.g., with a trade union), and if the individual worker consents. The individual's consent is subject to conditions:
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Look up overtime in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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Translations:
Overtime |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - overarbejde, overtid, overarbejdsbetaling, omkamp
adv. - på overtid
v. tr. - overbelyse (foto)
Nederlands (Dutch)
(betaling voor) overuren, verlenging (sport)
Français (French)
n. - heures supplémentaires
adv. - (faire) des heures supplémentaires, sans arrêt
v. tr. - faire des heures supplémentaires, travailler sans arrêt (l'imagination)
Deutsch (German)
n. - Überstunden
adv. - Überstunden...
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - υπερωριακή απασχόληση ή αμοιβή, υπερωρία
Italiano (Italian)
ore straordinarie
Português (Portuguese)
n. - hora extra, serão (m), prorrogação (f)
Русский (Russian)
сверх установленного времени
Español (Spanish)
n. - horas extraordinarias, prórroga
adv. - fuera del tiempo estipulado
v. tr. - hacer horas extras, prorrogar
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - övertid(sarbete)
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
加班, 加班费, 加班时间, 超过时间, 加班地, 使超时
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 加班, 加班費, 加班時間, 超過時間
adv. - 加班地
v. tr. - 使超時
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 시간외노동, 초과근무수당
adv. - 규정시간을 넘어서
v. tr. - (사진노출에서)시간을 너무 잡다
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 超過勤務, 超過勤務手当, 延長時間, 時間外労働
adj. - 超過勤務の, 時間外の
adv. - 時間外に
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) وقت إضافي, ساعات العمل الإضافيه
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - שעות נוספות
adv. - נוסף על השעות הרגילות
v. tr. - חשף (סרט צילום) לאור זמן רב מדי
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 | OT (abbreviation) |
| Carruthers, Charles Edwin (Quotes By) |
| compensatory time |
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Barron's Business Dictionary. Dictionary of Business Terms. Copyright © 2007 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Gale Encyclopedia of Small Business. Encyclopedia of Small Business. Copyright © 2002 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture & Construction. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Overtime. Read more |
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