Overtime can take a toll on both employees and employers – your profits take a hit, and your employees can quickly start feeling overworked. But when deadlines are looming or customer demands are piling up, it can feel like the only option. Here are a few ways to reduce overtime in your company.
Dismantle “Overtime Culture”
Company culture is an important factor in how it operates – if you regard overtime as a normal component of doing business, then everyone below you is going to do the same. It’s important to keep overtime as a last resort, not a normal part of working. Don’t let your employees get used to clocking out late every day.
Make the Most of Your Working Hours
A common cause of overtime is poor management of the time that you have on a normal day. Menial tasks can eat up a huge amount of time – automating them can free up a huge amount of time and drastically reduce the amount of overtime your employees work. Try using project planning tools and email automation to leave more time for actual work to get done.
Cross Training
You should never have a system in place that relies on one or two employees to pick up the slack. If you track the patterns of your company’s overtime, you’ll probably notice that the bulk of that overtime is being worked by a few specific employees. Ensure that your whole team is capable of doing required tasks to reduce the strain on the more skilled employees.
Schedule Properly
One common cause of excessive overtime is improper scheduling – when labor doesn’t suit demand, it can lead to overworked employees. It’s often more cost effective to schedule an extra helping hand when things are going to get difficult than constantly paying for overtime and sick days as your employees burn out.
Using scheduling software to monitor workflow patterns can help you schedule your employees more effectively, ensuring that you always have the right number of people on shift.