"Whatever Happened to Overtime?", a piece written by a Job Creator

[celedhring]

In the old pre recession days, not giving overtime pay was the path to high employee turnover. Now, you can just jerk 'em around because there is another sucker needing that job.

Not that I do that shit.

Here the regulatory fines for doing that create a considerable disincentive for most established businesses.

In Spain, nobody's going to report their employer with a 25% unemployment rate. You can report anonymously, but in most small firms the ambient pressure on potential "rats" (even from fellow workers that don't want to risk their jobs) is just too high.

Even in the "good times", people preferred not to get in trouble in order to be able to progress their careers.

[CountDeMoney]

Here the regulatory fines for doing that create a considerable disincentive for most established businesses.

Here the profit from doing that creates a considerable incentive for most established businesses.

[The Brain]

People are good sports.

[crazy canuck]

In the old pre recession days, not giving overtime pay was the path to high employee turnover. Now, you can just jerk 'em around because there is another sucker needing that job.

Not that I do that shit.

Here the regulatory fines for doing that create a considerable disincentive for most established businesses.

In Spain, nobody's going to report their employer with a 25% unemployment rate. You can report anonymously, but in most small firms the ambient pressure on potential "rats" (even from fellow workers that don't want to risk their jobs) is just too high.

Even in the "good times", people preferred not to get in trouble in order to be able to progress their careers.

While our system does respond to complaint driven cases, the employment standards branch also conducts investigations independant of employee complaints and they have wide ranging powers to conduct audits.  As someone said earlier, it is relatively easy to audit hours worked and whether appropriate overtime pay was given.

[garbon]

Wherever I have worked, we have had a tendency oscillate between needing to fill out time sheets and not needing to fill them out.

[crazy canuck]

Here the regulatory fines for doing that create a considerable disincentive for most established businesses.

Here the profit from doing that creates a considerable incentive for most established businesses.

That just means the regulatory fines are not high enough.  In addition to facing an order to pay all outstanding overtime within a certain period of time, employers also face escalating fines for each breach of the legislation.  Each employee not paid overtime is considered an independant breach and so the fines add up to the point where it quickly becomes unprofitable to breach the legislation.

[derspiess]

Wherever I have worked, we have had a tendency oscillate between needing to fill out time sheets and not needing to fill them out.

We've gone back & forth on that at my company the past 9 years.  For the past 2 years they've been OMG Extremely Important!!  but they won't tell us why.  But there's some project manager that sends you a nastygram on Sunday if you haven't submitted the previous week's timesheet.  Sometimes he starts nagging you Friday afternoon if you haven't started one yet. 

So I don't even think about doing mine until late Friday afternoon and sometimes if I'm busy I'll forget until the following Monday.  Drives the dude crazy, apparently.

[CountDeMoney]

That just means the regulatory fines are not high enough.  In addition to facing an order to pay all outstanding overtime within a certain period of time, employers also face escalating fines for each breach of the legislation.  Each employee not paid overtime is considered an independant breach and so the fines add up to the point where it quickly becomes unprofitable to breach the legislation.

This is America, man;  every regulatory fine is never high enough, from labor and environmental standards to financial compliance and homeland security standards.  Why spend more when cutting the check for regulatory fines is always easier?

[CountDeMoney]

Wherever I have worked, we have had a tendency oscillate between needing to fill out time sheets and not needing to fill them out.

I've noticed that some online job application software platforms ask your salary and then how many estimated hours a week you worked.  I always put down 50 to 55, even though filling out the time sheet for payroll took 30 seconds, since it was always 40 hours a week.

The elimination of overtime and the use of exempt employees saves time in determining labor costs in the budget.  A lot easier to say we pay this guy $X a year as a 40 hour/week employee than it is to deal with overtime, which can totally fuck up budget projections.

[Admiral Yi]

This is America, man;  every regulatory fine is never high enough, from labor and environmental standards to financial compliance and homeland security standards.  Why spend more when cutting the check for regulatory fines is always easier?

Do you know a single person who has been withheld over time pay due them?  I don't.

[Jacob]

Wherever I have worked, we have had a tendency oscillate between needing to fill out time sheets and not needing to fill them out.

We've gone back & forth on that at my company the past 9 years.  For the past 2 years they've been OMG Extremely Important!!  but they won't tell us why.  But there's some project manager that sends you a nastygram on Sunday if you haven't submitted the previous week's timesheet.  Sometimes he starts nagging you Friday afternoon if you haven't started one yet. 

So I don't even think about doing mine until late Friday afternoon and sometimes if I'm busy I'll forget until the following Monday.  Drives the dude crazy, apparently.

My guess is that the current management philosophy is metrics driven, so for his job he needs the timesheets to create the various charts and graphs and trends to report and/or "analyze".

[garbon]

Wherever I have worked, we have had a tendency oscillate between needing to fill out time sheets and not needing to fill them out.

We've gone back & forth on that at my company the past 9 years.  For the past 2 years they've been OMG Extremely Important!!  but they won't tell us why.  But there's some project manager that sends you a nastygram on Sunday if you haven't submitted the previous week's timesheet.  Sometimes he starts nagging you Friday afternoon if you haven't started one yet. 

So I don't even think about doing mine until late Friday afternoon and sometimes if I'm busy I'll forget until the following Monday.  Drives the dude crazy, apparently.

Yeah that's what happens. Sometimes they are very important and then all of a sudden they are not. Most recently my current company has gone to the they are not important as no one is looking at data so you do not need to fill them out.

[CountDeMoney]

This is America, man;  every regulatory fine is never high enough, from labor and environmental standards to financial compliance and homeland security standards.  Why spend more when cutting the check for regulatory fines is always easier?

Do you know a single person who has been withheld over time pay due them?  I don't.

I was addressing the larger issue of regulatory fines, not those specific to overtime. 

[MadImmortalMan]

I always put down 50 to 55, even though filling out the time sheet for payroll took 30 seconds, since it was always 40 hours a week.

I used to fill them out accurately, but HR gave me a hard time and told me to just put 40 every time. I asked them why I needed to do it at all if it was always going to be like that.

I'm guessing it's merely CYA for regulatory compliance.

I haven't been paid overtime at any job in at least the last 20 years.

[Admiral Yi]

I was addressing the larger issue of regulatory fines, not those specific to overtime.

Which presumably includes those for overtime.