Overtime 16

[RedBauer]

How's overtime typically work with the firms you work with?

I currently am a civil PE that works for an A/E firm and a majority of us are salary. We're overly busy with too much work right now. We are not paid for overtime, so I generally do not work overtime unless it's necessary (i.e., board meetings, client meetings, etc.) that requires me to be on the road. To be honest, my brain is generally fried after 8 hrs of design if I'm sitting at my desk.

We were told recently that we had to work overtime to meet an unrealistic deadline for our architect. After checking around, it appears other firms within the state pay straight time for anything over 40 hrs that's billable. Shouldn't that be the norm? We work on an hourly basis. The billable hours over 40 hrs aren't really subjected to overhead costs, so the company is making money during this time.

Should I work overtime without any compensation? If I work overtime, I have to pay extra for my 9 month old son to be at daycare longer. So technically, I'd be losing money.

 

[KENAT]

So Ron, if you could work 60+ hour weeks for the forseable future and still not catch up then you should do so out of professionalism?

Then again I'm not a PE, I'm in exempt in a field where there's almost no direct benefit to being PE.

Of course being the resident contrarian around here molten metal & Jed seem a little too idealistic for me too.

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[jdgengineer]

We run our firm with engineers all on salary. Typically, up to the issuance of the building permit we are on a fixed fee. During construction we are often hourly.

We bonus heavily on a quarterly basis based on performance. The size of our jobs are such that one engineer is typically doing the work (with oversight / QC from PM). We track the profitability of each job and can then determine the profitability of each engineer. This is used as the basis for the bonus adjusted as necessary to account for the intangibles (attitude, quality of work, etc)

The bonus is not dependent on the hours worked but instead on the work executed. You could get a large bonus by working a lot of hours inefficiently or less hours really efficiently. To me this is most fair to everyone.

I don't like the idea of overtime. It rewards time in the chair and not necessarily productivity.

 

[GregLocock]

I work what the contract that I signed says. It doesn't say additional unpaid hours until the work is done. Call me unprofessional. Mind you I don't do paid overtime either, but that's a whole different kettle of worms.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[Ron]

KENAT.....As you correctly deduced, I was referring to the licensed side, not the exempt side. As we've debated here numerous times over the years, there is a difference. I don't see how the PE side could properly fit the exempt mode and likewise. Engineers in exempt status are engineers just as the non-exempt, and are professionals, not tradesmen. I just firmly believe that engineers of both varieties are higher in the food chain than tradesmen, and should comport themselves accordingly. If we allow corporations to treat us as commodities we will become as dispensable as a worn out tool.

I'm pretty sure that neither you nor Greg get taken advantage of for the long term. We all do for the short term. There are many ways to compensate for extra effort, I just believe that simple overtime pay on a routine basis is not the answer to that for engineers, exempt or not.

 

[mtu1972]

Companies want their engineers to be professional but then treat them like crap.

First salaried job: worked lots of hours including at home out of my briefcase (before computers). Kept track of the hours so that projects could be billed. No holiday on Good Friday so that we could catch up with the Architect's that had the day off. Year end bonus was typically about 50% of my "hourly" pay - salary / 2080 hours.

Second salaried job: worked 50 to 60 hours per week. Salary based on 39 hour weeks (4 8's + 7 on Friday). Bonuses were better than previous job, but still did not equal average hourly wage. Four of us structural engineers in department and two of us worked far more hours than the others. Our reward was being given more work because we got more done than the other two.

Were reviewed and rated on a "Management by Objectives" process. When you accomplished more that became your normal and became next years expectations. Probably some MBA type of BS.

Made up my mind that I would never work as salaried again. Management did not care and was obviously oblivious to what was going on within the entire Engineering Department. I wish I knew what their bonuses were. Probably way better than mine.

gjc

 

[berkshire]

mtu1972
In almost any large company, HR, is the driver for most salary, and overtime decisions, this in turn is driven by upper management who do, or do not, keep these people in check.
The underlying principal is to get as much, work out of you, for the least cost to the company. This in turn is driven by the economy and the labor market.
If there are a number of suitably qualified people available to do the kind of work you are doing, then salaries offered will be comparatively low and the company will be strict on what they will and will not offer. After all if you do not like it, you can easily be replaced. As the labor market tightens excess application of this kind of logic results in people leaving and taking jobs elsewhere.
A tactic often employed when a company realizes that a worker they perceive as "useful" is serious about leaving, is to offer to match the salary offered by the competitor. This can be dangerous if you stay, because now you are branded as “disloyal" and whilst HR may be offering you a better salary and work conditions, they will be working behind your back to replace you at the first opportunity.
Not all companies fit this mold ,there are companies where the CEO realizes that people are not, just numbers and restrains HR, making them treat, his/her workers salaried and hourly fairly.
B.E.



You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[moltenmetal]

Ron: it's been my personal experience that "professionalism" has been used as a goad to beat people into accepting conditions that no self-respecting tradesman would tolerate.

I never said that the compensation offered by an employer to their salaried engineers in return for overtime had to be equal to straight time much less time and a half for the hours put in. But it has to be more than ZERO, or the people asking for it are unethical and the people accepting it are fools. It absolutely can, and should, be tied to the financial performance of the business entity. Overtime on the part of professional staff is a "sweat equity" investment in the company, and should be viewed as such. Personally I am very selective about where I make my investments.

If you don't compensate for overtime, you can't expect it much less can you compel it at a condition of employment when it is needed. To do so is unethical by definition- it's theft, unless you don't think that the services being offered are of value!

I've worked as an engineer for over 25 years, and I'm licensed, though that license doesn't mean much here in practical terms. The first two years, I worked like a madman for nothing other than salary. Every year since then, I've been paid in some way for the overtime I've put in. I honestly haven't done the math on it, but I sincerely doubt I've ever made less than straight time for my O/T. If it ever came close enough for me to need to do the math on it, you can bet that I'd reduce how much I put in, or demand more compensation.

Even though I'm compensated for it when it is necessary, I do not put in O/T unless it is truly necessary. A lot of people are covering for their own inadequacy, real or perceived, as performers or as managers, by putting in all that extra time. Others do it because they love their jobs and don't see the downside of working for free. Others do it because they don't have a life outside work, and boy I can tell you that's an autocatalytic situation if you live it for a while. Unless they're self-employed, all these people need to open their eyes.

Want to volunteer? There are plenty of worthy charities to volunteer for- people who are really making a difference in society. Don't waste your time volunteering for a for-profit enterprise.

 

[Ron]

Ron: it's been my personal experience that "professionalism" has been used as a goad to beat people into accepting conditions that no self-respecting tradesman would tolerate

MM...I agree with this. Maybe I'm just quirky in my thought process on this; however, while money has never been my primary motivator, I've found that it has followed my efforts. When I was in the corporate world, my concern was being treated fairly as compared to others. There were times when I called them on that issue....not being paid to performance and stature. There were times when my timing just sucked such as when I worked for a large international engineering firm and was promoted to a lower officer position (technical, not management) only to find out that a couple of months earlier they had discontinued the vehicle allowance for that level of officer! Bottom line...it was then just a title that looked slightly better on my resume, but no tangible benefit. When I was then promoted to a "real" officer level, it turned out to be the same! That time, it did help in that when I decided to leave the company for a smaller company, they gave a fair amount of weight to that resume tidbit.

 

[mtu1972]

Berkshire -

That second position I was referencing was the best job I ever had, but the management had no clue what was going on in the in-house engineering department. We did not keep time sheets and therefore our efforts were never attributed to any specific projects. We were considered overhead.

We had a 70+ person engineering department with about a 50/50 split on engineers and drafter/designers. The Civil/Structural department had 4 engineers and 4 drafters. Projects were assigned to individuals for each fiscal year with no consideration as to schedules, etc. The one constant was that all of the Mills had a downtime around the 4th of July so most of the "big" projects had that as the target for installation. Other projects that did not affect the whole mill would be scheduled so as to avoid that period.

At one time, I was terribly overloaded and my next door neighbor was looking for something to do. We both went to our supervisor and asked if he and I could trade projects so that he would take over one of my spring projects and I would take one of his fall projects. Denied, with no explanation.

When the company was purchased by a foreign company, the first thing they did was get rid of engineering as we were overhead. I went to work for consulting engineering companies in the area. The first thing that was noted by the mill managers was that engineering on projects was very expensive. Marked up wage rates, mileage, meals, etc. They had no idea what we had contributed to the company.

Maybe if we had tracked our hours, and thereby costs, to specific projects "management" would have had some clue as to our value.



gjc

 

[berkshire]

mtu1972
you have just described a pitfall of upper management being screened from or otherwise not knowing what a particular department does for a company.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[nickelkid]

Professional does not equal salary, if it does I missed that when I read the rules for my licenses.

If it does, I wish my employers good luck getting that OT money back from my wife.

 

[EmmanuelTop]

Somebody made a very good statement recently, on a similar topic: "Loyalty is a poor substitute for professionalism". People who expect from you to work without compensation often use "loyalty" as one of key arguments.

It's like a notorious thief holding presentations about honesty...

Dejan IVANOVIC
Process Engineer, MSChE

 

[DVWE]

People who expect from you to work without compensation often use "loyalty" as one of key arguments.

That is correct. But the old adage, "A pat on the back doesn't pay the bills" always trumps that argument. It's earned me some pretty good smirks over the years.

 

[urgross]

I used to be told (when I was young) that all the extra time would be made up for at bonus time. I thought they said "bonus" but it was actually two words that sounded exactly like "bonus".

 

[moltenmetal]

urgross: you have just nailed the reason that most bonus/incentive schemes fail to motivate people. There's generally some senior management and some shareholders who feel that they are entitled to have 100% of the earnings of the company divided up among them, and the employees should just be grateful to have a job which pays a salary and some benefits. So they're stingy about sharing the profit, even when there is plenty to share. How soon the "sweat equity" contributions of salaried staff are forgotten...Instead, bonus time becomes an optimization: how little can I get away with giving these folks before they get pissed off and leave? That's a dead easy decision if all your professional employees are sheep who think that their extra time is expected as part of being a "professional" and therefore fairly assessed at zero value!

Another adage I repeat often is to paraphrase and extend something I once read, which I think was originally written by Scott Adams: all contributions of time, effort, dedication, energy, resourcefulness, innovation etc. etc. that you make to an employer, will be accepted. Not compensated for, or even noticed, but definitely accepted!

 

[tempeng]

When I worked for one of the larger consultancies, any overtime hours had to be approved by your department director. The only time they'd approve OT is if they'd asked you to do it. the time sheets would then go to the HR dept. who would then mark your OT as "unnecessary hours", meaning they didn't think OT was required to complete whatever you was working on and write off the extra pay, but still bill for the hours. There was also bonus incentives for early completion but these were very, very rarely paid. The salary was good but not worth the all the extra stress of an overly long working week.

Now I will give an hour to an hour and half OT for nothing if I think the project merits it but anything over that, I expect compensation.

 

[JedClampett]

At the risk of being called Pollyanna, the idea of not compensating for overtime seems like poor business. What you're essentially saying is you always have the exact right number of employees, working 40 hours a week, all the time. No unexpected absences, terminations, resignations, not to mention unexpected work. It's much easier to staff a little short (not 20%!), and make up the rest with overtime.
If you don't compensate the employees, when they figure out you're (perennially) short staffed, they'll resent the extra unpaid time, which is likely to reflect on work quality.

 

[KENAT]

Or Jed Clampett it is likely to lead to them quitting in droves, as we're currently encountering.

(It's a bit more complex than that but definitely a major factor.)

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[moltenmetal]

Or Jed Clampett it is likely to lead to them quitting in droves, as we're currently encountering.

The smart, capable ones who can find other work will leave in droves. The dumb or lazy drones will stay. Putting out 30 or 25 or 20 hours of output in 50-60 hours at their desks is a mark of pride for some people. For others, only having 30 hours of work to do in a 40 hour week for any more than a week or two is absolute torture. Perhaps they lack creativity- I can always find something productive to do!

 

[KENAT]

So now I'm a dumb lazy drone huh, thanks for that moltenmetal.:-(

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