Overtime and Absence costs Queensland Corrective Services $35m - what about your business?

Queensland Corrective Services Minister Joe Francis has raised concerns over “unacceptable” levels of sick leave, overtime and workers compensation amongst prison officers - with overtime and personal leave costing the state close to $35m last year*. 

Organisations need to establish an effective means of measuring and monitoring employee attendance and overtime, particularly across the Public Sector where they are under constant pressure to manage their wage bill more effectively.

Mitrefinch are currently assisting a number of Government and state agencies with their absence and attendance reporting needs, arming them with the information they need to optimise their workforce and eliminate costly overtime and contract labour.

With this information on hand, department heads and managers can quickly identify; how often a worker is absent, how much working time has been lost, if there is a particular pattern forming, and where absenteeism occurs the most (i.e. within a particular department, team). 

An automated Time and Attendance System is a powerful Workforce Management tool designed to accurately analyse employee attendance information and the associated costs. 

By recording unplanned absences and leave, a Time and Attendance System can generate a complete Absence Profile for an individual employee, group of employees, or department, for further analysis. As well as identifying how absence impacts the organisation's overall productivity. 

To help alleviate the problems associated with unplanned absence, in-built employee scheduling and rostering capabilities can help management to plan work schedules and shift cover according to available resources, skill sets, and pre-defined budgets. 

For more information on absence management, attendance recording and time tracking solutions contact the Mitrefinch team today.

* Source: HC Online

A sign of the times: Rise of Workaholics Anonymous

In this "always-on" society and with smartphone use going through the roof, is it really any wonder that we are breeding a nation of Workaholics?

After widespread success in the US, Workaholics Anonymous has made its way to Australian shores reports The Age Newspaper.

Workaholics Anonymous is a support group in the same vein as its more well-known namesake Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), with groups now up and running in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide. 

A recent study found people are more likely to experience burnout when they are exposed to continuous stress, long hours, increased workload and a feeling that they have no other work alternative. 

While WorkCover’s 2011-2015 Occupational Disease and Wellbeing Strategy, also reported that the number of claims for occupational diseases in NSW is increasing – with more than 17,000 claims for mental disorders such as work-related stress, anxiety and depression between 2007 and 2010. 

Organisational and industrial psychologist Dr Tim Hill said those with high ambition but a lack of stress management skills are at the highest risk for burnout. 

“If you’ve got a new hire who has a real need to prove themselves in a position that has a relative degree of difficulty, desire to prove themselves can turn into a compulsion – they may lose work/life balance, neglecting their needs if they have obvious behavioural changes, something like depersonalisation can be a strong indicator they’re on their way to burnout.”

Dr Hill also pointed to workplace bullying as a leading cause of workplace stress and burnout saying bullying often flies under the radar and workers sometimes feel reluctant to report it.

Employers are urged to look out for warning signs such as; a rise in absenteeism, increased workplace conflict and cynicism, isolation or detachment from others in the workplace.

An automated time and attendance software system can monitor and track employees’ working hours as well as unplanned absence and leave. By recording absences, a time and attendance software system builds a complete Employee Absence Profile which can be viewed on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis. While a Group Absence Profile allows you to analyse absence for a specific team, department or site.

By measuring the work absences of individual employees a time and attendance software system can identify how these absences impact the organisation’s overall productivity, while real-time reporting allows supervisors and managers to quickly identify potential problem areas and address issues before they get out of hand.

To find out more about how improved Workforce Manangement and Time and Attendance Tracking can help you monitor your employee's work patterns visit Mitrefinch online

Sources: 

Human Capital Online 
The Age - Workaholics down tools to get their lives back  

Check out our other work stress-related blog posts: 

Excessive Overtime may be linked to Depression
Preventable job stress costs economy $730 million annually

Positive relationships and better work/lifebalance 'key to job fulfilment' 

Suffering from overworkitis? Take a dose of "Go Home on Time" today!

Do you struggle to clock off on time? Never enough hours in the day to do all the things you want to do? Does having a Smart Phone mean you are always connected to the office?

 
New research by The Australia Institute in the lead up to “Go Home On Time Day” has found that, 6.8 million Australians' personal time is interrupted by work phone calls or emails, 2.2 million don't know what time they will be heading home from work when they leave the house in the morning, and 4.8 million find it hard to take their annual leave at a time that suits them. 

Now in its fourth year, “Go Home On Time Day” (November 21) is an initiative of The Australia Institute and its aim is to show employers and their staff that life doesn’t need to revolve around work. 

The day was originally conceived as a light-hearted way to start a serious conversation about the impact of poor work/life balance on our health, relationships and workplaces – and needless to say the team here at Mitrefinch are keen supporters!

The negative impact working excessive hours can have on an employee’s mental wellbeing are well documented. Just a couple of months ago, we reported on a UK study that found working 11-hour days on a regular basis can more than double a worker’s risk of depression compared to those who typically work an eight hour day – Read the "Excessive Overtime may be linked to Depression" blog post.

As a provider of Workforce Management Software Systems, we are often asked about the value of having a Time and Attendance Solution when an organisation only has salaried staff on the books. 

In our opinion, if you don't monitor your employees’ working time you can’t manage it! 

By having all staff clock in/out, managers and supervisors can easily identify just how much unpaid overtime their employees are putting in and if there is a particular pattern forming - e.g. staff being forced to work overtime around the end of the month or busy trading periods. 

Armed with this information you may be able to justify hiring additional staff or bringing in contractors at times of increased activity, or at the very least acknowledge the effort being put in by your team - perhaps introducing a Time in Lieu scheme or incentives for those that put in the hard yards? 

In the long run, this ultimately benefits you as a motivated and happy workforce generally means increased productivity! 

There are many more benefits of using an automated time and attendance system, visit our website to find out more or feel free to contact us directly on +61 2 8762 7888 or sales@mitrefinch.com.au 

Also, be sure to relieve work related stress this afternoon and Go Home On Time! 

For more info on “Go Home On Time Day” and to get your workplace involved see: http://www.gohomeontimeday.org.au/

One in five Aussies work at least 50 hours a week - is your Organisation tracking Unpaid Overtime?

One in five Australian employees are working at least 50 hours per week according to the International Labour Organisation. While figures released by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the UK, show unpaid overtime worked last year equated to 1,968 million hours, with 5.3 million workers putting in an average of 7.2 additional hours per week.  

Now that's a lot of hours worth of work going unpaid!

Commenting on the findings, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said that this data sheds light on the "valuable but too often unrewarded" extra hours that workers put in.

"But while many of the extra unpaid hours worked could easily be reduced by changing work practices...a small number of employers are exploiting staff by regularly forcing them to do excessive amounts of extra work for no extra pay”.

"This attitude is not only bad for workers' health, it's bad for the economy too as it reduces productivity and holds back job creation."

What's more, if employees are having to frequently work excessive hours, workplace health and safety standards may slip, increasing the organisations exposure to workers' compensation or other claims due to fatigue or stress related injuries.

Employers should be doing more to recognise the unpaid overtime put in by their staff – but first they need to have a system in place to effectively measure and report on overtime.

As a provider of Time Management Systems, we are often asked about the value of having an automated Time and Attendance System when an organisation only employs salaried staff. 

By having all staff clock in and out of work, managers and supervisors can easily identify just how much unpaid overtime employees are putting in and if there is a particular pattern forming - e.g. are staff required to work longer hours around the end of the month or busy trading periods. 

Armed with this information you may be able to justify hiring additional staff or bringing in contract labour during periods of increased activity, or at the very least acknowledge the efforts of your team - perhaps introducing a Time in Lieu scheme or incentives for those that put in the hard yards? In the long run, this ultimately benefits you as a motivated and happy workforce generally means increased productivity!

Flexible or remote working policies could also help. By working from home, employees can cut out their daily commute, giving them more time in the day to work and allowing them to clock off on time. Employee Self Service tools would allow staff working remotely to log their work hours or allocate their time to specific jobs/projects via Online Timesheets or PC based clocking tools.

Confident that your staff are being paid correctly?

Maybe it's time you checked your payroll reports as yet another company has been caught out for allegedly underpaying it's employees.

This time, the operator of a Gold Coast pizza shop is being prosecuted by the Fair Work Ombudsman for allegedly underpaying 27 employees almost $20,000.

The employees in question were aged from 20 to 37 and several are from non-English-speaking backgrounds, employed as cooks, kitchen-hands, customer service attendants and delivery drivers.

The workers were allegedly underpaid their minimum hourly rates, overtime rates and weekend penalty rates, with one staff member allegedly underpaid evening work allowances.

It is also alleged that the outlet owner, Mr Murphy, failed to comply with a Notice to Produce documents issued by Fair Work inspectors during their investigation.

Under the Fair Work Act, employers must comply with requests from the FairWork Ombudsman to provide employment records relating to employees and former employees.

Fair Work Ombudsman Nicholas Wilson said the decision to prosecute was made because of the involvement of vulnerable workers and the employer's failure to rectify the matter.

Read the full article online at Payroll News

How can you safeguard your organisation from a potential Fair Work investigation?

Ensuring that you are compliant with different pay scales, penalty rates and modern awards can represent a major headache for many organisations, with other recent workplace cases such as Toys 'R' Us, highlighting the importance of effective Award Interpretation and Time Management processes.

An automated Employee Time Management System takes the stress out of employee allowances and entitlement calculations via an in-built, fully customisable Award Interpreter.

Easily calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules. A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors.

Reports and Employment Records can also be generated quickly and easily should you be asked to produce them as evidence by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

If you would like discover how your organisation can benefit from more efficient Award Interpretation and effective Employee Time Management contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 931 or email sales@mitrefinch.com.au

Excessive Overtime may be linked to Depression

The current economic climate is forcing many white-collar, public sector workers to spend more time at work than the typical 9-5. 

However, this could have a damaging impact on their mental wellbeing, with a recent study finding that working 11-hour days on a regular basis can more than double a worker’s risk of depression compared to employees who typically work an eight hour day. 

More than 2,000 British civil servants who had no mental health problems were researched when the study began in 1991. Six years later, 66 cases of major depression were found in the workers after they received mental health screenings. Men and women who worked more than 11-hour days had a more than twofold increased risk of depression, compared to employees who spent less than eight hours at the work. 

Marianna Virtanen, a study researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health believes that a variety of genetic, physical, and emotional factors can make a person vulnerable to depression. At the workplace, the prolonged stress felt by people with long hours is one of the contributing factors to depression. 

Dr Virtanen believes that: “Long working hours are likely to be related to less time to relax and less sleep. It is also possible that excessive working hours result in problems with close relationships, which in turn, may trigger depression”. 

Signs of depression can be found in trouble sleeping, feeling stressed, being irritable and dissatisfied, or lacking pleasure in those things that usually make you happy. A depressed person can also be less efficient at their job, make more mistakes than normal and have trouble getting organized or concentrating. 

It is important that managers use the data collected by their time and attendance systems to monitor not only the contracted hours of their staff but also the extra hours that employees put in to complete projects. 

Armed with this information you may be able to justify hiring additional staff or bringing in contractors at times of increased activity, or at the very least acknowledge the effort being put in by your team - perhaps introducing a Time in Lieu scheme or incentives for those that put in the hard yards? In the long run, this ultimately benefits you as a motivated and happy workforce generally means increased productivity! 

What's more, if your employees are having to frequently work extra hours without compensation you could have a potential lawsuit on your hands. (See blog Post: "Aussie Workers are being forced to work extra hours without compensation, how could a Time and Attendance System help you avoid a potential lawsuit") 

There are many more benefits of using an automated time and attendance system, visit our website to find out more or feel free to contact us directly on +61 2 8762 7888 or sales@mitrefinch.com.au 

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9038507/People-who-work-11-hours-are-twice-as-likely-to-suffer-depression.html

Minimising the Festive Frenzy with a Time Management System (Part 2)

In the second instalment of our three-part series looking at how a Time Management System can help ease your festive stress, we reveal how you can effectively manage public holidays and holiday pay rates.

In Australia, each State and Territory has slightly different arrangements for public holidays over Christmas and New Year, which can result in much confusion, particularly for companies with numerous sites across the nation. As a result, Fair Work Australia (FWA) have put together a list of the public holidays for each specific State and Territory for the 2011/12 holiday Christmas period – view list here.

So now you know the public holiday dates what pay are your staff entitled to?

According to FWA, if a full-time or part-time employee’s ordinary hours of work fall on a public holiday, and the employee does not work on the day, the employee is entitled to their base rate of pay for their usual hours of work on the day.

If the employee does not usually work on the public holiday, the employee is not entitled to payment.

If the request is reasonable, an employer may ask their employees to work on a public holiday. If the employee is required to work on a public holiday, their entitlement to penalty rates is determined by their modern award, industrial agreement or contract of employment.

In addition to the specified national public holidays, State and Territory governments can also specify other public holidays. These can apply throughout the State or Territory, or only in a specific region e.g. Melbourne Cup Day.

A State or Territory government can also substitute another day for the public holiday. For example if a public holiday falls on a weekend, a State or Territory government may either declare a ‘substitute day’ for the public holiday, or declare an ‘additional day’ to the public holiday.

Regardless of the State or Territory you operate in, Mitrefinch's Time Management System (TMS) takes the stress out of employee allowances and entitlement calculations via an in-built, fully customisable Award Interpreter. 

Easily calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules. A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors.

For more information contact Mitrefinch Sales on 1300 884 831 (+61 2 8762 7888) or visit Mitrefinch Online

Sources: Fair Work Australia

Minimising the Festive Frenzy with a Time Management System (Part 1)

With the festive season almost upon us, many organisations are beginning to feel the effects of increased pressure and activity. In addition, resourcing challenges, managing multiple requests for annual leave, and allowing for public holidays and penalty rates, can all contribute to high levels of stress within your Operations and HR department!  

Over our next three blog posts we will look at the different areas where an effective Employee Time ManagementSystem can help ensure that you have a hassle free run up to the holidays!

First up is employee scheduling and ensuring you have the staff on hand to meet customer or production demands.

An automated time and attendance system, with scheduling capabilities, enables you to roster staff to fixed and flexible shifts according to predefined budgets. Any subsequent roster changes will trigger a notification if the shift is in danger of exceeding budget. By looking back over previous year, you can also schedule staff numbers to mirror forecasted customer numbers over the holiday period, or ‘on-the-fly’ to meet emergency requirements.

A number of workforce management systems also allow you to create groups or pools of available employees to help with scheduling multiple departments or stores. Casuals or agency staff can nominate themselves as being available to work for certain times of the week, and can be rostered on by supervisors to assist with filling positions or vacant shifts. A notification is then sent direct to the employee so they are aware that they have been included in the shift.

With many organisations (particularly in Retail and Hospitability), relying on casuals to provide the extra manpower required to operate effectively over the holiday period, they will need to be closely monitored to ensure they are serving their purpose. If they are late, taking long breaks or chucking sickies, you run the risk of having to pay permanent employees overtime as they may be required to cover and work extra hours. An automated Time and Attendance system, provides supervisors with an insight into how their casuals are performing, enabling them to address any issues before it affects your bottom line.

If you’d like to find out more about how an automated Time and Attendance system can help contain your Festive stress levels  contact Mitrefinch Employee Management today on 1300 884 831 (Australia) or 09 363 9557 (NZ).

Our Free Guide to Choosing a Time and Attendance system is also available to download online.

It's Go Home On Time Day!

Each year, Australians work more than 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime, which is the equivalent of $72 billion worth of foregone wages (See: Something for Nothing: Unpaid overtime in Australia).

Do you find yourself working back late? Never enough hours in the day to do all the things you need or want to do? Or with the emergence of Smart Phones and mobile applications are work calls or emails getting in the way of your free time?

Perhaps you are a manager who values your staff, do you want to show them how important they are?

Well, Go Home On Time Day on Wednesday November 30 is a great way to recognise that life doesn’t need to revolve around work - and here at Mitrefinch we are loving the idea!

To find out more or get involved see: http://www.gohomeontimeday.org.au/

As a provider of Time Management Systems, we are often asked about the value of having a Time and Attendance System when an organisation only has salaried staff on the books. 

In our opinion, if you don't measure it you can't manage it! 

By having all staff clock in/out, managers and supervisors can easily identify just how much unpaid overtime their employees are putting in and if there is a particular pattern forming - e.g. staff being forced to work overtime around the end of the month or busy trading periods. 

Armed with this information you may be able to justify hiring additional staff or bringing in contractors at times of increased activity, or at the very least acknowledge the effort being put in by your team - perhaps introducing a Time in Lieu scheme or incentives for those that put in the hard yards? In the long run, this ultimately benefits you as a motivated and happy workforce generally means increased productivity!

What's more, if your employees are having to frequently work extra hours without compensation you could have a potential lawsuit on your hands. (See blog Post: "Aussie Workers are being forced to work extra hours without compensation, how could a Time and Attendance System help you avoid a potential lawsuit")

There are many more benefits of using an automated time and attendance system, visit our website to find out more or feel free to contact us directly on +61 2 8762 7888 or sales@mitrefinch.com.au

Aussie Workers are being forced to work extra hours without compensation, how could a Time and Attendance System help you avoid a potential lawsuit?

A backlog of projects to get through, and pushed to deliver them within the required timeframes?

If this sounds like your workplace, it may come as little surprise that many Australian employees are being forced to work extra hours without being compensated, as revealed by a new ACTU survey. 

The poll of 42,000 employees, believed to be one of the largest ever conducted with Australian workers, has found that many are under increasing pressure at work.

ACTU President Ged Kearney told ABC Radio, "We have in fact what we call a productivity squeeze which means businesses are achieving productivity (gains) through a great deal of pressure on workers,"

And what's more worrying is that there is a large amount of unpaid work being done - "We are being told by our members that they are working harder than ever, longer than ever and not getting paid for that extra work," she said.

HRMorning.com in their recent “Unauthorized OT: One big pitfall for supervisors” article, also found that many supervisors are cutting corners to avoid racking up an expensive overtime bill, by either not properly recording employees’ over time hours or simply not paying employees for the extra work.

But if one of those employees decides to notify Fair Work Australia, it’s going to end up costing a lot more than a little overtime pay, as a number of companies have discovered of late (See our previous Blog Post).

Kearney added that, a large number of respondents, particularly those in casual or part time positions, feel obligated to put in the extra hours for fear of not getting shifts or additional work when they may need it.

"This survey shows that workers are working harder than ever and that in some ways they're getting exploited even though the legislation is there to protect them."

So what can you do to avoid costly workplace lawsuits?

Labour and Employment Law Expert, Bill Pokorny from the Wage & Hour Insights Blog (which is a  great read BTW) advises supervisors to:

• Ensure employees are compensated for all hours worked 
• Set realistic expectations i.e. they can’t pressure employees to “just get it done” by working off the clock 
• Verify employees’ time records regularly to make sure workers are properly reporting their time – as even where employees don’t keep accurate time records, companies could still be on the hook for unpaid OT, if a supervisor knew about it.

Could an automated Time and Attendance system help? 

An automated Time and Attendance system would provide a complete, up to the minute record of all employee time and attendance data, giving an accurate insight into how long employees are spending at the office, or on specific jobs and projects. 

For salaried staff, this would allow you to ensure they are compensated for extra hours worked outside of their normal working day (may be in the form of Time Off in Lieu etc..). 

By analysing overtime data and work records, you may also find that it could be more cost effective to bring in additional resources or contractor staff in times of high demand as opposed to paying high overtime rates.

In addition, with mobile and web-based Time and Attendance applications, you could introduce flexi-work arrangements and work from home initiatives, which enable employees to record their start and finish times, as well as allocate time to specific jobs/projects - regardless of their location. 

Continue to our website to find out more information about Time and Attendance systems as well as other workforce management alternatives that may help you address overtime issues within your organisation.

Alternatively feel free to call us on 1300 884 831 (Australia) or 09 363 9557 (NZ)