Overtime Revisited
My team and I have heard from many of you regarding concerns about overtime and your work. Some of you are worried that if you claim overtime for working extra hours that you may attract negative attention to yourself from your leadership. Worse yet, some of you fear that to take rightfully-earned compensation for overtime is likely to put you on a layoff list at some future time. Some of you also report being pressured into taking overtime not as extra pay but as time in lieu, which then accumulates in a time bank. Others of you aren’t aware of when overtime should begin in an APSA workday.
It's very important (not to mention, built right into British Columbia’s Employment Standards Act (“ESA”)) to be appropriately paid for the hours you work and also appropriately compensated for the overtime hours you work: you shouldn't fear any kind of negative attention for doing so. I'd like to draw your attention to the University’s August 2020 document, “Q & As — Additional Hours of Work for APSA Employees.” From here on, I’ll just refer to this document as “Q & As”.
SFU's overtime Q & As are a vital document for helping understand how overtime works at SFU. While I won't summarize the entire document in this space, here are three highlights from this document that I hope will help you whether you’re an APSA manager or an APSA non-manager. It’s very useful to read the SFU Q & As in I their entirety to ensure that you’re granting and/or receiving overtime per the ESA and per SFU’s own responses in the document. For ease of reading, I'll just note that the numbering of the points below isn't sequential and comes from SFU's Q & As.
As the APSA standard work day is 7.2 hours long, exclusive of the meal period, I note from page 2 of SFU’s Q & As the following:
3. Do all hours worked in addition to the APSA’s standard hours of work by non-managers and managers have to be recorded?
- For non-managers, time worked beyond 7.2 hours must be recorded and either paid out or banked.
- For managers, time worked beyond 7.2 hours must also be recorded but can only be taken as time off in lieu. The time taken in lieu should also be recorded.
In short, any hours worked beyond the standard APSA work day of 7.2 hours are overtime hours. You'll also note the mention of the term "banked" in the first bullet point. While you can bank your overtime in a time bank, per the ESA you shouldn’t be pressured into accumulating your overtime hours in one. How you take your overtime is your choice, not your leadership’s choice.
On the issue of time banks, I note also from page 2 of SFU’s Q & As the following (the bolding is mine):
4. What is the process for a non-manager choosing to take their additional hours worked as banked?
A non-manager can make a written request to have their extra hours credited to a time bank instead of having them paid out. If a time bank is established the employee may at any time request that all or a part of the OT wages be paid out, be permitted to use the credited OT wages to take time off with pay at a time mutually agreed to by employee and supervisor, or to close the time bank. The supervisor may close an employee’s time bank after 1 month’s written notice to the employee. Within 6 months of closing an employee’s time bank the supervisor must ensure the employee is paid all OT credited to the time bank, allow the employee to use the credited OT to take time off with pay or a combination of the two above. Time banks are paid out if an employee is terminated.
For those of you who regularly work overtime — say, doing your job on evenings and weekends just to keep everything running — SFU also has guidance for you, whether you’re a manager or not. Again, the bold emphasis below is mine . . . .
13. What if employees have concerns about working OT?
In this event, specifically, as well as more generally, supervisors should engage in a proactive and collaborative discussion with employees who report to them regarding job objectives and the management of workload. It is important to note that employees should not be expected or required to work hours in addition to APSA’s standard hours of work on a regular or routine basis.
Now, if you have an individual situation regarding overtime or anything that you’d like to discuss with me or my team, please don't hesitate to reach out. Conversations with us are always confidential.