BC Overtime Policy
BC Employee Handbook Topic Help BC Overtime Policy
Get 6 Free Templates
  1. Home
  2. Employee Handbooks
  3. BC Employee Handbook
  4. BC Overtime Policy

BC Overtime Policy

Topic 100-BC     Importance: High

Purpose

 Provides guidance to managers and employees on how the amount of time worked beyond work schedule will be compensated and administered.

Benefits
  • Control labour costs by managing overtime expenses.
  • Consistent, fair and accurate payment of overtime.
  • Transparency on how overtime will be paid.
  • Identification of teams/departments with high overtime prompting a review of processes to achieve a more efficient operation. 

Risks
  • Non compliance with legislation governing overtime payment.
  • Impact on expenses due to non-monitoring of overtime.
  • Complaints of unfair and wrongful payments impacting employee morale.
  • Frequent and excessive overtime is not good for the health of employees. This policy helps in the identification of teams/department with high overtime.

HR Expertise

 Minimal. Payment of overtime is strictly regulated by the Employment Standards Act. 

Time/Effort

Minimal as overtime rates are clearly spelt out in the Employment Standards Act. 

Dependencies

 This is a stand alone policy without any reference to other parts of the Employee Handbook.

Key Decisions
  • Procedures to put in place to curb excessive and abuse of overtime.

Key Approvals
  • Highest level in the leadership team
  • Highest level in Finance

Additional Resources

 Employment Standards Act: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/employment-standards/hours/overtime-pay

Additional Tips

 Payment on overtime is strictly regulated. To manage excessive payment of overtime, a company should closely monitor frequency of overtime requests and put in place tight guidelines such as when overtime can be performed, who has the overtime approval authority and which group of labour will be used to perform the overtime (balancing pay grades and expertise required). 

Getting Started

Engage with the leadership team on the following:

  • Explanation of how overtime is paid according to the Employment Standards Act.
  • Pros and Cons of overtimes, including impact of excessive overtime on employees' health & safety. To provide the financial impact, get from Finance the current overtime expenses and impact on the bottom line. 
  • Procedures on how to curb or manage overtime.
  • ...Finally!  A straightforward and comprehensive HR toolkit that makes sense for small businesses...
    Dana Murray | President, Prospec | Seattle, WA

  • "...Comprehensive, well-written and creative… provided us with a new perspective on what kind of best practices we should be implementing for existing and new employees... great value with instant return on investment."

    George Reznik | Chief Operating Officer & CFO, Infowave Software

  • "...Easy to use and cost-effective.  ConnectsUs HR toolkits has all the tools I need for developing my HR policies and procedures, and company information."

    Matthew Eichhorst | President, Expedia CruiseShipCenters

  • "...I wish I had this product years ago! It is an invaluable tool for time and resource-strapped HR departments to quickly turn out quality HR practices and procedures..."

    Coleen Hunter | National Director, Human Resources, PharmaSave

  • "... We had a menu of everything we could possibly need to quickly create HR best practices. The toolkit helped me understand what every small business should have in place."

    Salina Visram Landstad | Partner, Creative Spirits

  •  "... covers all the bases and really do let us focus on fine-tuning an existing product to meet our needs instead of starting completely from scratch."

    Ed Anderson | President, Dyrand Systems
Testimonials Customer List