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When I hire new employees, they sign an overtime letter stating that they understand that ot may be mandatory on a same day notice and that they will not have a problem working ot. Well, now that we are getting busy due to the holiday season coming upon us, many of these employees are not willing to stay and work the ot. Are we within legal rights to mandate this? Can we terminate this employee after we follow our progressive discipline procedures? It is usually the same set of employees who find every reason to not be able to work late. And, if the ot letter is a "workable" tool, how often do I need to update employee signatures on this letter?

Our employees usually get an average of 40 hrs. per week and we do pay time and a half for ot.

Theresa Gegen TX

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-03-02 AT 09:36AM (CST)[/font][p]Unless there is some specific law forbidding it in your state (Texas does not have any), you can require overtime. For the employee who refuses to work overtime, you need to ask the employee why to ensure that there is no type of FMLA conflict (like I have to take care of my ill parent or child after work hours) or disability conflict (my Doctor says I can't work more than 8 hours a day). If there is no legally protected conflict, then the employee can be disciplined (up to and including termination).

You need to let the employee know directly that if they refuse to work the extra hours they will be terminated and replaced. Most employees, I suspect, will back down once given the ultimatim. You might also want to have their signed agreement handy, to remind them that they knew this was part of the job.

I expect that the forced overtime will cause quite a bit of grumbling, if employees have been getting away with just saying "no" in the past.

Good Luck!

John Vering MO

I agree with Theresa Gegan. Although not requried, having employees acknowledge in writing every couple of years the obligation to work overtime may be helpful as a reminder of job requirements.
John Vering
Mo. co-editor

Don D

I don't think you'll want to do this; but, if you really want a surefire way to enforce this, invite yourself into a union contract situation. Ours mandates precisely this policy and the inability or refusal to work even short-notice OT equals 'no show' since he has in effect been put on notice that he is scheduled to work OT. Then the progressive discipline kicks in.