Staff working extra hours for no extra pay is a frequent news topic these days so I was interested to read an ONS statistic that around a quarter of full-time employees work paid overtime and that the median amount is four hours per week. Typically this is paid at time and a half during the week and on Saturdays; double time Sundays and Bank Holidays (sometimes also Saturday afternoon). The parable of the workers in the vineyard never has applied much in the modern world.
This looks very much like the traditional manufacturing pattern that has been around for many years where workers would typically do one or two hours mid-week and a four-hour shift on Saturday mornings (harking back to when men did not help with the shopping and football matches were always at 3pm on Saturday afternoons). I might have expected a greater change.
Of course that was a statistic for full-timers and nowadays there are many more part-time staff who may work extra hours (but at flat rate), people putting in unpaid hours and all those working in 24/7 organisations where weekends and evenings are now simply contractual hours.
Paid overtime needs to be carefully controlled but is a tried and tested mechanism for flexing costs to demand. Used too readily it can simply bloat your cost-base. Used sensibly it helps over-staffing for the base level of demand or too frequent lay-offs. In many ways it is a type of performance-related pay.
