Overtime is a significant concern for most businesses but particularly for those that are still trying to get off the ground. Overtime occurs when an employee works beyond their regular workweek hours. State and federal laws dictate what is considered overtime and vary from one state to the next. Overtime wages are often much higher than standard wages, which means that labor budgets can quickly get out of hand if not controlled.
Here we’ll look at how a time card app can help you avoid excessive overtime with the various features that are included.
Get Notified When Employees Near Overtime
One of the best ways a time card app can help you avoid overtime is by notifying your managers before an employee reaches that point. Since employee time tracking is automatic, you can also set automatic notifications for when an employee has worked their scheduled number of hours and is about to hit overtime on a daily or weekly basis.
Getting notifications through the timekeeper app before an employee earns overtime allows managers to send these employees home and bring in employees who have not yet reached the overtime threshold. This improves the balance of hours and keeps a select group of employees from monopolizing hours when the labor budget is essential.
One of the most detrimental side effects of too much overtime, besides the impact on the company’s bottom line, is that it can lead to employee burnout if the overtime is due to a heavy workload. Employees who don’t get enough rest may perform poorly at work, and their productivity and morale will suffer as a result.
Too much overtime can even result in labor law compliance issues and morale issues among the rest of the workforce. Employees who get more hours than the rest of the workforce may appear as favorites to the other employees, resulting in conflict within your labor pool. This may cause other employees to slack off or be unproductive.
Diversify Your Scheduling so There’s Less Chance of Overtime
It’s much easier to adjust schedules and ensure everyone has hours with a team time tracking app. By managing employee schedules and making sure employees aren’t pushed to the limit and hours are more spread out among employees, you can avoid the possibility of overtime.
Plus, better hour distribution typically means happier employees. You don’t have some employees feeling overworked and others feeling neglected for hours. Managing your employee’s workload is another essential part of making sure no one goes over. If you’re constantly pushing employees up to the maximum number of hours, overtime is inevitable.
Identify Overtime Patterns
A time and attendance app archives data so that you can look back at it over time. This means that you can identify patterns where employees are consistently getting overtime. At this point, you can then determine the issue behind the overtime and take appropriate action. In some cases, it may be that an employee needs retraining. In other cases, an employee may be abusing the clock and gaining overtime on purpose.
In the worst cases, you may be understaffed to complete specific tasks or during periods of heavy business. This means you need to add additional personnel or move staff around to avoid overtime. Either way, having the data allows you to take action to stop overtime from happening.
Match Staffing Demand
As we’ve mentioned, controlling who works and when is an integral part of avoiding overtime, but this also correlates to managing staffing levels during slow and heavy periods. Knowing when to add more staff and when to send people home is critical to managing hours and avoiding overtime.
The good thing is, employee job tracking is captured in real-time along with attendance, so you can easily make adjustments on the fly and control hours very easily.
Overtime is sometimes necessary to ensure that your business meets customer demands; however, incurring excessive and unnecessary overtime should be avoided at all costs. And this is where a time card app can help ensure that employees are working overtime only when required.
