Overtime Policies Research Articles

How Union Organizers Rate Your Place of Business: Part 2

Last month, we began a discussion of how a union organizer might assess employers they wish to target. We addressed issues such as how the employer handles overtime policies and overnight shifts, as well as housekeeping, seniority, and grievance procedures. This month, to help employers prioritize the most significant flags that could draw the attention of an organizer, we discuss additional criteria frequently used by union organizers to target employers.

COVID-19 and coworker conflict among emergency medical service clinicians.

Safety policies enacted in response to the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have greatly affected the working environments of emergency medical service (EMS) clinicians. Our objective was to evaluate whether changes in the EMS environment during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with increased workplace conflict. This evaluation was a cross-sectional analysis of a random sample of 19,497 national certified EMS clinicians who were selected to receive an electronic survey in April 2022. The survey included an assessment of their level of stress using the Perceived Stress Scale instrument and examined changes in their working environment they perceived had occurred due to the emergence of COVID-19. Logistic regression modeling was used to evaluate the associations between workforce demographics, infrastructure, scheduling, and policies to and COVID-19-induced coworker conflict. A total of 1686 responses were evaluated (response rate 10%). We found that COVID-19 was reported to have exacerbated conflict between coworkers in 51% of responses. Respondents who perceived an increase in coworker conflict due to COVID-19 self-reported higher levels of stress than the rest of the respondents. Perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 on conflict had also an association with the level of certification, indicating that national registered paramedics were more likely than emergency medical technicians to report coworker conflict due to COVID-19 (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.30, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05-1.61). Multivariable analysis highlighted the impact of mandatory overtime policies, reported by 27% of the respondents and associated with higher odds of exacerbated coworker conflict in our model (AOR 2.05, 95% CI 1.62-2.60). These findings indicate that conflict can be considered a potential indicator of high levels of stress in the EMS workforce and may be a reliable signal to monitor when implementing mandates that affect EMS clinicians and their workloads.

Analisis Jam Kerja Dan Waktu Lembur Pada Perusahaan Manufaktur Kota BATAM

Provision of good working hours in accordance with standards must be maintained by businesses to fulfill all their goals, including the Indonesian manufacturing industry. The manufacturing industry in Indonesia must prioritize work standards, because these factors greatly affect a company's ability to achieve its goals. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of working hours and overtime on resource management with industrial relations, to analyze working hours to attract employees and to analyze the calculation of employee wages. The author uses a qualitative descriptive method in this study. The result of this research is that everyone involved in industrial relations must understand the rules of the game and other regulations that apply in Indonesia. In terms of working hours or overtime policies, developing the quality of human resources, absenteeism and leave policies, and salary increases that are in accordance with industry standards, can improve employee welfare and productivity and maintain competitiveness in a company.

Analysis Of Physical And Mental Workload Using Nasa-Tlx And Cvl Methods In Umkm Berkah Toys

Berkah Toys is one of the UMKM engaged in the production of surpets, dolls. mattresses and pillows that utilize HDP (High Density Padding) and dakron (Silicon) as the main raw materials. When sales are rising, UMKM owners will apply an excessive overtime policy, resulting in a decrease in the worker attendance rate by 20%, which is as many as 2-3 workers out of a total of 13 workers. In addition to resulting in decrease in attendance, excessive overtime also causes fatigue in workers, both physical fatigue and mental fatigue. Therefore, workload strengthening must be carried out on UMKM workers of Berkah Toys, the methods used are the NASA-TLX (National Aeronautics and Space Task Load Index) and CVL (Cardiovascular Load) methods. From the results of research conducted for the NASA-TLX methods, the factors that most affect workload are performance (22,32%) and physical needs (21,64%) while from the CVL method it is known that there are 38 % of workers who experience physical fatigue, namly as many as 5 production workers.

Participatory design of a sleep intervention with correctional supervisors using a root causes approach.

After a Design Team (DT) conducted a workforce health assessment of correctional supervisors, they selected sleep as an intervention priority, given its numerous health and work consequences. Existing workplace sleep interventions are designed with little worker input, but participatory solutions that incorporate workers' lived experiences and root causes of poor sleep may be more relevant, appropriate, and acceptable to end-users, resulting in better uptake. The DT met bi-monthly to complete the Intervention Design and Analysis Scorecard (IDEAS) tool to brainstorm interventions that address root causes of poor sleep,and evaluate, rank, and select interventions for implementation. We conducted a qualitative review of meeting notes and worksheets from each IDEAS step, and present our findings on root causes and prioritized solutions. The DT consisted of two university researchers and seven members of a correctional supervisors' union, with 5-9 participants attending each meeting. IDEAS Steps 1-5 were completed in eight meetings over six months. Root causes of poor sleep included mind/body and environmental disruptions, and insufficient time. Three solutions were proposed: training on sleep hygiene, meditation, and sleep debt management; a sleep-tracking smartphone app; and a shared overtime policy based on splitting one 8-hour shift between two supervisors. This is the first known application of IDEAS to address sleep, and targeting root causes may result in more efficacious interventions for sleep improvement. Moreover, because IDEAS guides DTs in selecting solutions with the greatest perceived health benefits, reach, cost-effectiveness, and feasibility, it may result in more successful implementation.

Sleep Health in Male-dominated Workplaces: A Qualitative Study Examining the Perspectives of Male Employees

ABSTRACT Objective The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore working men’s perspectives about sleep health and the intersecting influences of gender and work, describing participant’s views on current and potential programming and organizational support to promote sleep health. Methods Twenty men employed in male-dominated industries in the north-central region of Alberta, Canada, participated in 4 consultation group discussions addressing motivators, facilitators and barriers to sleep health. Results Participants reported sleeping an average of 6.36 (SD ±1.1) hours per night, and the majority worked more than 40 hours per week. Data were analyzed using an inductive approach. The findings provided important insights. In normalizing sleep deprivation and prioritizing the need to “just keep going” on six or less hours of sleep, the men subscribed to masculine ideals related to workplace perseverance, stamina and resilience. Workplace cultures and practices were implicated including normative dimensions of overtime and high productivity and output, amid masculine cultures constraining emotions and conversations about sleep, the sum of which muted avenues for discussing, let alone promoting sleep. Challenges to good sleep were primarily constructed around time constraints, and worry about meeting work and home responsibilities. Men’s preferences for workplace support included providing and incentivizing the use of sleep health resources, designing work for sleep health (e.g., shift schedules, overtime policies) and getting advice from experienced coworkers and experts external to the workplace organization. Conclusion These findings hold potential for informing future gender-sensitive programming and organizational practices to support sleep health among working men.

Enhancing adaptive performance in emergency response: Empowerment practices and the moderating role of tempo balance

Fire departments, like other organizations that follow rigid hierarchical structures, face difficulties in being flexible or adaptive enough to address the needs generated by large and complex disaster environments. Research is lacking, however, on the ability of empowerment practices to enhance adaptive performance in emergency response organizations, which today face increasingly complex threats and growing responsibilities. The present study explores the relationships between the empowerment practices of career development opportunities, work autonomy, employee voice with two leadership levels, and department adaptive performance. Moreover, tempo balance and the empowerment practices are tested for interactive effects, a measure we developed to capture firefighter stress and fatigue from excessive mandatory overtime policies. Data were collected from 756 United States firefighters located on the west coast. The results show that the empowerment practices enhance adaptive performance by helping firefighters respond to unpredictable aspects of their work environment. In addition, tempo balance moderates career development opportunities, work autonomy, and adaptive performance, specifically. The findings show that firefighters are better able to overcome stress and fatigue during complex incidents by relying on their training and ability to improvise, meaning these empowerment practices help compensate for poor tempo balance in fire departments from ineffective scheduling.

Effect of Compensation on Employee Performance: In Case of Mizan Tepi University Teaching Hospital

Compensation is very important for the performance of the employees. Therefore they are very important for the organization too. This study aimed to examine the effect of compensation on employee performance in Mizan Tepi University Teaching Hospital. The study was conducted from November 2018 to June 2019 and included all employees of the hospital. A questionnaire was designed to collect the data on the elements related to compensation like basic salary, bonus, house rent allowance, overtime policy, leave policy and employee performance. The study was used explanatory research design and both primary and secondary data was used to conduct this study. Stratified random sampling technique was used to infer the target population of the study. The data was collected from the employees of Mizan Tepi university teaching hospital. The collected data was analyzed by SPSS 20 Version. Descriptive and explanatory statistics was used to analyze the data and a sample of 213 employees was used to collect the data. However, only 200 employees responded to the questionnaires and hence, the response rate was 94 percent. Besides, descriptive statistical tools like frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation are used to illustrate the demographic characteristics of the respondents and to assess the perception of employees from data collected through questionnaire and the study revealed that majority of the respondents feel disagreed on compensation elements of the organization. Inferential statistical methods like correlation analysis was used to assess the relationship between compensation elements and employee performance, multiple linear regression analysis also was employed to examine the influence of compensation elements on employee performance by using primary data collected through five scale likert questionnaire. Based on the findings of the study, all factors of employee performance have a positive and statistically significant correlation with employee performance. The multiple linear regression analysis (R2) implies that about 54.4% shows that compensation elements determine the variation of employee performance of Mizan Tepi university teaching hospital. Also the regression result revealed that all explanatory variables except bonus have a significant effect on employee performance. This indicated that compensation elements determine employee performance of Mizan Tepi university teaching hospital. Therefore, Mizan Tepi university teaching hospital should implement compensation elements appropriately and continuously as an indispensable tool to improve and maintain sustainable employee performance. Keywords : employee performance, basic salary, bonus, house rent allowance, overtime policy and leave policy. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-31-05 Publication date: November 30 th 2020

Which Replacement Is Better at Working Cycles or Number of Failures

When a unit repeats some works over again and undergoes minimal repairs at failures, it is more practical to replace it preventively at the end of working cycles or at its failure times. In this case, it would be an interesting problem to know which is better to replace the unit at a number of working cycles or at random failures from the point of cost. For this purpose, we give models of the expected cost rates for the following replacement policies: (1) The unit is replaced at a working cycle N and at a failure number K, respectively; (2) Replacement first and last policies with working cycle N and failure number K, respectively; (3) Replacement overtime policies with working cycle N and failure number K, respectively. Optimizations and comparisons of the policies for N and K are made analytically and numerically.

Analysis and Discussion on Overtime Phenomenon From the Perspective of Cross-culture

Under globalization, the rapid development of China's economy has attracted a large number of foreign joint ventures to set up companies, and a large number of foreign outstanding talents come to China to work. Because of different social systems, there is a difference in the way they deal with the problem. At present, the phenomenon of overtime work in China is serious, and foreign employees are not adapted to China's high-intensity overtime. In this paper, we used Hofstede's cultural dimension to analyze the 996 working system of 58 city employees, and compared with the overtime work of Chinese foreign invested enterprises, so as to find out the difference of Chinese and foreign overtime culture. Based on the above analysis, we come up with the following suggestions that the foreign employees should take the initiative to adapt themselves to Chinese culture, seek for intersections and common goals with unites, and the organizations should respect the unique culture of foreign employees and develop flexible overtime policies.

Maintenance Overtime Policy with Cumulative Damage

We propose an extended maintenance overtime policy for the cumulative damage model where an operating unit suffers some damage due to shocks. It is assumed that the total damage is additive, and the unit fails when the total damage has exceeded a prespecified damage level. It is supposed that we start to observe occurrence of shocks after time T, and the unit is replaced at Nth (N=1,2,…) shock over time T or at failure, whichever occurs first. That is, we propose a new policy by extending maintenance overtime policy. One example is a rental of system such as industrial equipment with some reservations. For such systems, they should be maintained or replaced at a prespecified number of uses over a scheduled time. For such a model, we obtain the mean time to replacement and the expected costs rate. Further, we discuss about optimal number N^* and time T^* which minimizes the expected cost rate when shocks occur in a Poisson process. Finally, numerical examples are given, and suitable discussions are made.

Increasing the efficiency and productivity in the production of low voltage switchboard using resource constrained project scheduling

Purpose: This research was made with the aim to give a scheduling proposal for the assembly activity and the proposal to allocate those activities into available resources using the resource-constrained project scheduling.Design/methodology/approach: The research begins with the problem exposition in the existing system on the Assembly Department of panel manufacturer company. To overcome the problem, several scheduling alternatives are formulated to yield better productivity. The performance of proposed system using RCPS is assessed using simulation method. Considering the circumstance of demand rate, the scenarios chosen are based on the parameter such as product departure cycle time, resource utilization, product ouput, and number of resource required.Findings: The scheduling alternatives provides the better arrangement of work elements in the assembly activity, especially for the product that represent the highest demand rate. For further research, the paper gives encouragement so that the application of RCPS can be used broader in the manufacturing area.Research limitations/implications: Although the findings was addressed to improve the existing system on the Assembly Department, the practical application haven’t been undergone and the performance assessment only based on the simulation method.Practical implications: By implementing the proposed scheduling, the company will experience several benefits. First, the company could increase its productivity by better utilization of its resources. Second, based on the simulation result, the company could avoid the backorder option while dealing with the high demand rate, and even can fully maximize its resource utilization without adding more worker or apply the overtime policy. Finally, the proposed scheduling that converted into the work instruction could help the company to perform the knowledge transfer from the existing worker or resigned worker to the newly-hired worker.Originality/value: The outcome of the research could become the guidance for other companies which have similar assembly system to apply the same method. This is the best paper that represents the application of RCPS in the large-sized component assemblies, where the walking worker is responsible for carrying tasks to each unmoved unit.

Time-Dependent Transportation Network Design considering Construction Impact

A traditional discrete network design problem (DNDP) always assumes transportation infrastructure projects to be one-time events and ignores travelers’ delays caused by construction work. In fact, infrastructure construction usually lasts for a long time, and the impact on traffic can be substantial. In this paper, we introduce time dimension into the traditional DNDP to explicitly consider the impact of road construction and adopt an overtime policy to add flexibility to construction duration. We address the problem of selecting road-widening projects in an urban network, determining the optimal link capacity, and designing the schedule of the selected projects simultaneously. A time-dependent DNDP (T-DNDP) model is developed with the objective of minimizing total weighted net user cost during the entire planning horizon. An active-set algorithm is applied to solve the model. A simple example network is first utilized to demonstrate the necessity of considering the construction process in T-DNDP and to illustrate the trade-off between the construction impact and the benefit realized through capacity extension. We also solve the T-DNDP model with data from the Sioux Falls network, which contains 24 nodes, 76 links, and 528 origin-destination (O-D) pairs. Computational results for the problem are also presented.

The impact of overtime as a time-based proactive scheduling and reactive allocation strategy on the robustness of a personnel shift roster

The workforce size and the overtime budget have an important impact on the total personnel costs of an organisation. Since the personnel costs represent a significant fraction of the operating costs, it is important to define an appropriate hiring and overtime policy. Overtime is defined as an extension of the daily working time or the total working time over the planning period. In this paper, we make the distinction between scheduled and unscheduled overtime when we define the overtime policy. Scheduled overtime is proactively assigned in the baseline personnel roster whereas unscheduled overtime is allocated as a reactive strategy to overcome operational disruptions. The hiring and overtime policy undoubtedly influence the robustness included in a personnel roster, i.e., the capability of an organisation to deal with roster disruptions at an acceptable cost. In this paper, we investigate the trade-off between the hiring budget and the overtime budget and the way overtime should be allocated in the personnel management process. The latter comprehends a trade-off between the proactive scheduling of overtime and the reservation of overtime to balance supply and demand in response to operational variability. Insights are obtained by exploring three different strategies to compose a personnel shift baseline roster. We verify the robustness of each of these strategies by applying a three-step methodology that thrives on optimisation and simulation and we formulate some managerial guidelines to define an appropriate hiring and overtime policy.

Construction Materials-based Methodology for Time-Cost-quality Trade-off Problems

Time, cost, and quality (TCQ) as a triple constraint of construction projects have dependent and conflicting objectives. Considering the limited resources, estimation of the approximate TCQ is a complex and dynamic problem. In addition, the uncertain nature of construction projects and highly variable alternatives make the decision making process a complicated issue. In order to overcome these difficulties, many researchers in the related academic literature introduced different mathematical models on the TCQ trade-off problem so far. In these models, two different approaches were used to estimate TCQ-related data. In the continues approach, it was assumed that the relationship among these three components could be expressed by continuous functions. In the discrete approach, it was accepted that (i) the construction method, (ii) the crew formation, and (iii) the crew overtime policy have some impacts on the project TCQ and that the relationships among these three components become discrete. However, in previous studies, construction materials that have a significant impact on TCQ of construction activities and projects were not taken into account completely during the data formation process. As an exception, El Rayes and Kandil [1] considered different strengths of concrete as material alternatives in a highway construction project. In fact, all the studies focused on proving the applicability of different optimization techniques instead of optimizing TCQ of a real construction project. In this context, some simple projects including a limited number of activities were used to evaluate the applicability of the developed models. Therefore, in the present study, it is aimed to outline a new two-step methodology, including the alternative construction material utilization, for TCQ trade-off problems, especially for building projects which enable the utilization of the high variety of construction materials. For this purpose, the impact of construction materials on TCQ of a project was explained in a detailed manner.

Nurses' extended work hours: Patient, nurse and organizational outcomes.

Nursing shortages have been associated with increased nurse workloads that may result in work errors, thus impacting patient, nurse and organizational outcomes. To examine for the first time in Thailand nurses' extended work hours (working more than 40 h per week) and its relationship to patient, nurse and organizational outcomes. Using multistage sampling, 1524 registered nurses working in 90 hospitals across Thailand completed demographic forms: the Nurses' Extended Work Hours Form; the Patient, Nurse, Organizational Outcomes Form; the Organizational Productivity Questionnaire and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Spearman's rank correlation and logistic regression. The average extended work hour of respondents was 18.82 h per week. About 80% worked two consecutive shifts. The extended work hours had a positive correlation with patient outcomes, such as patient identification errors, pressure ulcers, communication errors and patient complaints and with nurse outcomes of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Furthermore, we found a negative correlation between extended work hours and job satisfaction as a whole, intent to stay and organizational productivity. Nurses who had extended work hours of >16 h per week were significantly more likely to perceive all four adverse patient outcomes than participants working an extended ≤8 h per week. Patient outcomes were measured by respondents' self-reports. This may not always reflect the real occurrence of adverse events. Associations between extended work hours and outcomes for patients, nurses and the organization were found. The findings demonstrate that working two shifts (16 h) more than the regular work hours lead to negative outcomes for patients, nurses and the organization. Our findings add to increasing international evidence that nurses' poor working conditions result in negative outcomes for professionals, patients and health systems. Policymakers need to be aware of the issues regarding nurses' extended work hours, which has been found to contribute to burnout. Urgently, nurse and health administrators need to develop and implement appropriate nursing overtime policies and strategies to help reduce this phenomenon, including measures to overcome the nursing shortage.

Over-time and over-level replacement policies with random working cycles

When a unit is running successive works with cycle times, it would be uneconomical or impractical to do maintenances during any working cycle. This paper firstly reviews two replacement models proposed in literatures as follows: (1) replacement is done over a planned time \(T\) at the completion of the working cycle, which is called over-time replacement, and (2) replacement is done over damage level \(Z\) at the completion of the forthcoming working cycle, which is called over-level replacement. From the viewpoint of replacement cost savings, we secondly focus on comparisons of over-time replacement and its standard age-based policy, over-level replacement and its standard condition-based policy. Furthermore, modified over-time and over-level replacement costs are obtained to specify critical points at which these new replacements, rather than their standard polices, would save more replacement costs. Discussions in this paper are given analytically and computed numerically.

AGE AND PERIODIC REPLACEMENT MODELS WITH OVERTIME POLICIES

This paper proposes two modified replacement policies which combine random replacement with standard age and periodic policies, where units undergo replacement at the first completion of some random working time over a planned time T, which are called replacement overtime. The expected cost rates of age and periodic replacement overtime polices are obtained, and optimal policies which minimize them are discussed analytically. Comparisons between such two overtime policies and standard age and periodic replacements are made in detail. When two costs for replacement overtime and standard age or periodic policies are the same, it is shown as estimated previously that the standard replacements are better than their overtime policies. Furthermore, two modified replacement overtime costs are discussed and computed numerically when such new policies would be better than the standard age and periodic replacements.

Optimal periodic and random inspections with first, last and overtime policies

It has been assumed for a standby unit that periodic inspection is performed more easily to detect failures, but such a strict periodic mode would be impractical if the unit is executing some procedures without stops. From the above viewpoint, this paper first optimises a random inspection policy in accordance with random procedure times, compares it with periodic inspection and computes a modified checking cost for random inspection to determine the case where such a random inspection would be adopted. Second, this paper proposes three new inspection models in which inspections with deterministic policies are scheduled strategically while their performances need to be limited by completion times of operation procedures. These policies are called inspection first, inspection last and inspection overtime. The total expected inspection and downtime costs of each model until failure detection are obtained, and optimal policies which minimise them are derived analytically. Furthermore, the three inspection policies are compared with periodic inspection, inspection first and last are compared with each other, and a modified checking cost for inspection overtime is discussed when the policy would be better than periodic inspection.

Slaves of the state - medical internship and community service in South Africa

Owing to a chronic shortage of medical staff in South Africa, sleep-deprived medical interns and community service doctors work up to 200 hours of overtime per month under the state's commuted overtime policy. Nurses moonlight in circumvention of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. For trainee doctors, overtime over 80 hours is unpaid, and rendered involuntarily under threat of not qualifying to practise medicine in South Africa. As forced labour, and sleep deprivation amounting to cruel and degrading treatment, it is outlawed in international law. No other professional group in the country is subjected to such levels of exploitation and discrimination by the state. These abuses should be challenged under the Constitution. Solutions include the installation of electronic time-recording in state hospitals, cessation of unpaid overtime, limits on medical intern shifts to a maximum of 16 hours, and an investigation by the Human Rights Commission of South Africa.