Question

Dear HR Professionals,

What do you advice if I am face with a situation where employees try to take advantage of Overtime .Instance, I have an employee who will apply for urgent leave on a weekday, and then come back to work on Saturday and Sunday.

For the urgent leave the employee took, this employee in the leave form deduct the leave as unpaid leave. However in such situation, does the company has to pay the employee OT pay for work on Saturday and Sunday ?

Thanks for your advice.

Philip

Reply 1

I think there are 2 separate issues here:

1) Paid / unpaid leave – if the employee is on approved paid leave, he is entitled to it. If the employee is on approved unpaid leave, his salary is deducted. Frequent urgent leave may need further inquiry as it affects company’s operation.

2) Overtime work – Overtime work is based on mutual agreement between employee and employer. If there is no mutual agreement, the overtime work is not recognized. If the employee is covered under EA, payment for agreed overtime work is mandatory.

Lam

Reply 2

You can state that they must fulfilled the week’s normal work hours before entitled to OT to prevent abuse. If not you can detail other workers to perform the OT instead.

Dksw