Understanding overtime
Jayne Hart
Chief People Officer | SaaS | Series A | Scale-up | People centric | Commercially focused HR
“I’m not doing it!†Have you heard this when requesting an employee works extra hours? Frustrating for sure and how you will deal with it will come down to how overtime is detailed in your employment contracts. Generally, there are three possibilities.
Guaranteed overtime is compulsory. There’s an obligation for the employee to fulfil the work AND for you to offer it (or pay them for it even if no work is available).
Non-guaranteed overtime puts an obligation on the employee to work overtime if the business needs it. But there is no requirement for you to offer it.
And voluntary overtime acknowledges that you might offer or request overtime, but that there is no obligation on the employee to work it.
These three scenarios outline your options in how to deal with that employee refusing to work overtime in the run-up to Christmas or during the busy sales. You’ll be reassured to know that judges have found in favour of companies taken to court for unfair dismissal following a refusal to work contractual overtime.
This is just what happened in Edwards vs Bramble Foods Ltd. It was argued that the employee was not only refusing to work overtime as per her contract. But was also spreading discontent among employees who were. The operations of the business were being put in serious jeopardy as Christmas approached. The sacking was judged to be lawful and fair.
That aside, there are other things to consider. When it comes to voluntary requests for overtime, ensure that your procedure for allocating it is fair and available to everyone who is eligible.
Don’t forget that regular overtime must now be considered a factor in determining at least four of the 5.6 weeks of holiday pay. This may be extra expensive for you if you have staff working lots of overtime in the run-up to Christmas before taking their annual leave.
And finally, at this time of year there’s a flurry of bank holidays. Your staff do not have a statutory right to extra pay for working these. Instead their payment terms for bank holidays will be dictated by what’s in their contracts.
For further information contact Jayne Hart, jayne.hart@hrdept.co.uk