Overtime Work: A Paradox
Working overtime – the pros and cons for employers and employees
More production yields more revenues. Therefore, there is always pressure for people to work harder, longer hours. This is demonstrably a Bad Idea.
Overtime is a common practice where the employers believe that worker should stay long to get more done, working more, produces more but with the “Law of Diminishing Return”. Looking at the number of units we ignore the impact on Productivity. The more time the workers work the more number units may be gaining to total production, but flashing light on the other side of the coin, the productivity goes down over the time in overtime. Taking the example of garments industry, two hours OT is a common operation in many factories. Please give a closer look at the number of production in the regular time and the number of production in the overtime, Statistics reveals that in most cases the number of production with the same input of Man, Machine, Material & Method in regular working hours is much higher and better in quality than working overtime,which has an obvious adverse impact on the profitability of factory.
The above paragraph, I have mentioned about the Law of Diminishing Return which tells that the more the input in the process may increase the number of production but may not be at the proportion of input given in the process. Any further input after optimum level the proportion of output goes down due to the Natural Law of Diminishing Return. In the same way human body has been programmed and designed to work at optimum level for 8 Hour in a day, any further input of man hour decreases the level the human Productivity. If we look at the natural dimension of time where 24 hours has been fixed for us. Among the 24 hours of time, 8 hours are for resting and sleeping and 8 hours for earning the bread and butter and rest 8 hours of our family, relatives, friend and for own self, for self-development. Any ups and downs in the 8 hours slots in any slot will have an adverse impact, which will make you less effective and lesser efficient and which has a direct relation with personal productivity and progress and above all heath. If you’re always staying late at work, there are many issues that can arise, including feeling overworked, stressed and constantly tired. However, this can also develop into long-term mental health problems, such as burnout – which was recently recognized as an illness by the World Health Organization (WHO). Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,’ according to WHO. Constantly working could also affect your personal relationships and hinder your creativity. If you are regularly working beyond your contracted hours, this is likely to have a negative impact on other aspects of your life, particularly your mental and physical health, and relationships. ‘The brain needs time to switch off and recharge, we simply cannot be mentally active all the time. Creative thinking comes out of a quiet mind, and this means taking time away from work, ideally with our emails and social media switched off.
There are some facts on impact of Overtime:
• People who work longer report sleeping less, which obviously has massive effects on your health
• Working 10 or more hours per day leads to a 60% increase in risk of cardiovascular problems
• In another study, people who worked 55 hours per week showed poorer vocabulary and reasoning than those who worked 40 hours.
• Some studies indicate that knowledge workers are the most productive when they work 35 hours a week.
• Industrial accidents increase disproportionately as hours increase above forty per week, or above 8 hours per day. More than half of all industrial accidents occur in jobs with extended working hours. The generally-accepted hypothesis is that the accidents result from tiredness.
Many European countries has adopted a policy to improve work-life balance for its citizens. The experiments of Lesser working time and flexible working time arrangements showing better productivity and happier personal life the country men and happier personal life has a proportionate relation with better productivity. Employees of many European Countries are encourage to leave office after 5 PM to take care of their families and personal life. Working overtime is neither valued nor seen as necessary in fact it can be seen as an indication of poor planning and time management.
Here lies a big responsibility of HR. HR now has been considered as Strategic partner of the Business, the cost center concept is over now. Being the strategic business partner the job of HR is to add value to the organization through investing in the most appreciating capital of Business – Happy Human Capital. Satisfied and Happy Human Capital can bring more revenue and profitability than any other investment in the business. Take a closer look why employee needs to stay over time. If you discover the reason is possibly the culprit would be poor productivity and conventional management thinking of stay more to more to produce me. HR plays the vital role here to bring transformation in new thinking and culture aspect of “More with Less”.
There is a saying- "Workaholic Dies Before an Alcoholic". Some Employees also wants show off to stay longer at office to show is supervisors that he/ she is better loyal to work. They create a smoke screen of showing busy than productivity and this camouflage their lower effectiveness. This pseudo Workaholics do not do any favors to their companies. They have high levels of stress, which undermine complex decision-making and cause crisis mentality, time urgency, blocked mentality, mistakes, and a portfolio of medical problems resulting in high absenteeism and medical expenses. They think no one can do the job as well as they can, so they can't delegate or trust, creates bottlenecks, conflicts, and missed deadlines. The conventional wisdom on productivity that settles of the endurance factor, or quantity of hours is dead wrong. For most alcoholics, it’s a long demise from cirrhosis of the liver or alcohol-related hepatitis. For workaholics, the end comes quickly in the prime of life, courtesy of stress-induced blood clots and heart attacks. It’s not a very productive outcome.
Researchers have found that there is negative correlation between workaholic behavior—long hours, feeling you should be working every waking minute, overwork—and productivity. A research in University of Georgia found in a metastudy on workaholism research that “even though workaholics may spend more time thinking about and physically engaging in work than the average worker, this may not be of any benefit to their employer rather making the system inefficient and it may be bad than good!
Time has come to think about the Concept of "More with Less" and continuous elimination of ineffective and inefficient and non-valued adding activities from the system to be on the competitive edge. Training, life coaching on Work Life Balance, Stress Management, Time management, Productivity, Efficiency, Lean Thinking Psychology, etc. under erudite and sensible sensei can help breaking the mentality and hand holding guidance can help to avoid the Presenteeism or working overtime for a peaceful and healthy personal life and better profitable growth in working life.
Working overtime is defined as working any additional hours that exceed the normally scheduled working time. That’s usually working more than the 40 hours week limit.
Overtime hours are regulated to some extent by working time directives or legislation, which differs from country to country, but in general has the goal of protecting employees from being abused.
The problem with working overtime is that it is frequently abused, and is thus frowned upon. It is for this same reason that we need legislation to regulate it.
People usually work overtime because they have to (poor time management and project estimations, workforce shortage etc.) and rarely because they want to. In addition, some companies even try to avoid compensating overtime work for salaried employees.
Nevertheless, working overtime can prove to be beneficial for employers and employees. Managing overtime in fluctuating markets can also be an important source of competitive advantage if done strategically and with productivity in mind.
And if the overtime is not based on abuse (there is proper compensation for employees), it can represent a “win-win” situation. However, it can be tricky to overcome some of preconceptions on the topic.
Why do most people end up working overtime?
First, let’s start with the main reasons why most people end up working overtime, some of which might be not what you expected (i.e., poor time management):
1. Too much work
An overload of work is the most frequent reason for having to do overtime; and if that’s a constant it’s not a good sign. If a lot of employees end up working overtime on a regular basis, their manager should re-evaluate their workload.
Overtime hours should never be the norm, but if the increased workload only happens in short periods or sprints, working overtime can be a strategic measure.
2. Meeting overload
Interestingly, the next most frequent reason for people to end up working overtime is being overloaded with meetings and other distractions at work.
The solution here is to set a clear meeting agenda, invite only the people who are absolutely vital and make sure useless meetings never get in the way of getting work done.
3. In-office distractions
As with meetings, other in-office distractions can prevent us from getting work done and extend the time it takes to complete a task. Open offices mean more collaboration and, consequently, more distractions.
Most people struggle to regain their focus after being distracted. If you notice a pattern, try to move their station to a quiet corner or a closed office.
You can read more about how to handle distractions at work here.
4. Email overload
Too many notifications and emails mean people get less real work done. Encourage your employees to check emails less frequently and to schedule uninterrupted time blocks for deep work.
For some occupations emails are real work (online support etc.), but for the majority of people spending too much time on emails can be a reason for having to work overtime.
5. Striver syndrome
Whereas the last three reasons were related to poor time management, this one is related to ambition. Should you work overtime to prove yourself?
Not in a healthy work environment, except for shorter periods in order to successfully finish a project or advance your career. As mentioned, working overtime should never be normal.
If you notice someone doing it, compliment their hard work, but remind them that quality is what counts and that you don’t want them to burn out.
Several studies have been done, which showed that working too many extra hours for too long leads to physical health problems, mental illnesses, injuries, decreased productivity and job dissatisfaction.
So, there always has to be a limit to working overtime, since it’s a “lose-lose” situation for the employer and employee if strict limits are not set.
In some cases working overtime makes sense for both parties
Managers don’t like resorting to overtime work, which is understandable as it has many negative aspects.
Some of these negative aspects we’ve already mentioned, such as:
However, the most common alternatives in fluctuating markets can be even more costly and could even be overkill.
In order to avoid overtime hours, some managers do the following:
Deciding what path to take should be based on the reason why your employees are working overtime and how often are they doing it. Is overtime a sign of a toxic work culture at your organization, or is it employed only when really necessary and compensated properly?