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Imagine being the manager at a hotel where some days are busier than others. If you were particularly busy, would you be willing to pay your staff overtime if they were willing to work a few extra hours, or would you ask them to work extra but try to make it look like they didn’t actually work overtime?

In this story, a manager and an assistant manger at a hotel are in this situation, and they disagree about how to handle it. It doesn’t end well for the assistant manager.

Let’s read all about it.

Does your hotel have a no-overtime culture?

Asking a serious question here:

Does your hotel have a “culture” (to use the industry term) where no one is supposed to get overtime? Where managers get chewed out if someone gets overtime? Where there is this sense that if someone gets overtime, heads are going to roll?

I ask, because I have seen so many situations over the years where people made stupid decisions because of this idea that overtime is anathema to running a business, when in fact, it is a tool to be used, just like anything.

Here is quick tale to illustrate my point.

This is a story about an assistant manager who didn’t make the best decisions.

Back when I was the GM of a 148 room hotel, I had an AGM that was one of those people who were good workers, would do anything you told them, and was always wanting to please.

But, unfortunately, didn’t make good decisions some times.

Like, for example, letting a friend use one of his employee rooms at a sister property on a sell-out-night and ooops – company operations manager happens to be visiting that property during a busy checkin and their friend is acting like a jerk.

The assistant manager was technically doing something illegal.

The overtime story goes like this: We are trying to keep the hotel at no overtime, but we are extremely busy during the summer, with limited staff for laundry.

Laundry needs to get done. But, it won’t get done that day/week without extra hours.

So, AGM tells laundry lady to come in early several days that week, like an hour or so, off the clock to do work, and he would fiddle with the hours in the timeclock program to shift those OT hours to the next week. Which is illegal. But, he’s trying to do a “good job” by not having overtime by coming up with this.

OP was not in the loop on this workaround.

So, one day, I come in early, because it is going to be a busy day, and I go to laundry, and she is already there working.

I ask why, because she’s not scheduled for another hour, and she said AGM told her so.

I tell her to go do something for another hour and to start at her scheduled time. Didn’t even know she was not on the clock.

Well, she gets mad and just leaves altogether, and after asking a LOT of questions, we find out the story with the AGM.

It didn’t end well for the assistant manager.

This of course gets bumped up to head office, they end up having to audit the timeclock and pay this lady what she is owed (as they should) and AGM, who is otherwise a loyal employee and good worker for 7 years gets canned over it.

How else to handle it?

Pay the workers who are willing to put the time and effort in for YOUR HOTEL the overtime they are owed, and do your best to have the staff available so people don’t have SCHEDULED overtime.

Here’s OP’s opinion about the situation.

I’m all against people clocking in 15-20 minutes early or staying 15-20 minutes late every day to “milk the clock”, check their facebook, talk to co-workers and get extra pay that way.

But if it’s busy during shift-change, I would want them to feel like they can stay and help and not get chewed out and leave their co-worker in the weeds, ticking off guests.

I am against having 3 people getting 48-60 hours a week when you can hire 1 extra person and staff like you should.

There are times when overtime is really helpful.

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But if a 40/hr employee stays an extra 2 hours to help because you are busy, or another employee is late or can’t make it or sick or whatever, and they need to work a double in order to staff the hotel – that should be a quick question.

Why? Because we needed it.

Pay the freaking extra 20-40 bucks to that person as a reward for stepping up! It will mean a lot more to them and their morale than it does to a company with a multi-million-a-year-gross hotel having to pay the extra payroll.

Overtime shouldn’t be a permanent solution to a staffing issue, but employers definitely shouldn’t be fiddling with the time clock to avoid paying employees the overtime they’re deserved.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this situation.

This hotel worker loves overtime pay.

This person can relate to how OP feels about overtime.

This person works too much overtime.

Another person doesn’t get paid for overtime.

Employees should be paid for overtime when they work overtime.

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Author

Jayne Elliott

Jayne Elliott | Contributing Writer, Life & Drama

Jayne Elliott is a contributing writer and editor for TwistedSifter specializing in human interest stories, internet culture, and family dynamics. With over 12 years of editorial experience in digital publishing, Jayne excels at analyzing complex online communities and transforming viral social debates into thoughtful, highly engaging narratives.

Rather than simply aggregating internet drama, Jayne brings a sharp, empathetic editorial eye to everyday dilemmas. She has a unique talent for unpacking the nuances of pop culture and online conflicts, providing readers with relatable, well-researched commentary.

Based in California, Jayne spends her free time outside the newsroom exploring theme parks with her family or beach-combing along the coast.

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