Michael CartyXpertHR’s HR data round-up for October 2012 looks at data relating to employer practice on overtime pay. We also provide links to all the latest additions to XpertHR Benchmarking and present our regular round-up of the best HR data blog posts.
Is your organisation keeping track of overtime?
XpertHR research suggests that many employers do not have precise data on the number of workers doing overtime (whether paid or unpaid), or on the amount they spend on overtime pay.
Here we take a look at latest official data relating to the levels of paid and unpaid overtime put in by UK workers, and provide links to XpertHR’s extensive benchmarking data resources on how employers manage overtime.
One in five puts in paid overtime
Nearly one-fifth of UK workers regularly put in paid overtime during 2011.
This is according to latest data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) from the Office for National statistics (ONS). ONS says:
The proportion of full-time employees working paid overtime in 2011 was 18.4%. The mean number of paid overtime hours for full time employees was 1.1. The percentage of men working fulltime who were paid overtime was 22.7 per cent, while 11.7 per cent of full-time women worked paid overtime.
Levels of paid and unpaid overtime working are falling, says TUC…
Levels of paid and unpaid overtime worked have fallen back over recent years, according to TUC analysis of the ASHE data.
According to the TUC, “the total number of paid overtime hours has declined from 54 million in 2007 to 41 million in 2011 – a fall of 25 per cent over four years.”
The TUC cites two key reasons for this trend:
The fall in paid overtime since 2007 is due to both a fall in the number of workers doing paid overtime – 825,000 fewer employees regularly worked paid overtime in 2011 – and a fall in the average amount of paid overtime, down from 11.2 hours per week to 10.6 hours this year.
The TUC also notes that “the total number of hours of unpaid overtime has been declining rapidly over the last four years.”
…but amount of unpaid overtime is still equal to ‘a million extra full-time jobs’
Despite these falls, the amount of unpaid overtime worked remains significant, says the TUC:
The total amount of unpaid overtime worked last year was 1,968 million hours – worth a record £29.2 billion to the UK economy – and roughly equivalent to a million extra full-time jobs.
The TUC analysis reveals the following:
5.3 million workers put in an average of 7.2 hours of unpaid overtime per week last year, worth around £5,300 a year per person.
Click here for more on the TUC data and methodology quoted here.
Only half of UK organisations know their annual overtime pay spend, XpertHR survey finds
Many UK employers are unaware of the amount of overtime worked by their employees, or of the level of their annual overtme spend, XpertHR research finds.
Just over half (50.5%) of UK organisations know what their organisation spends on overtime pay each year (See chart at top of page).
The remainder (49.5%) answered either “No” or “Don’t know” when asked if their organisation was aware of its annual spend on overtime pay.
A further one in five employers is unaware of the amount of unpaid overtime worked by their employees.
These are among the key findings of 2012 benchmarking research on overtime pay from XpertHR.
The 2012 XpertHR benchmarking survey of employers’ overtime arrangements and overtime pay rates, based on responses from 100 organisations with a combined workforce of 149,418 employees.
Overtime: Key benchmarking questions
Subscribers to XpertHR Benchmarking can drill down into the complete benchmarking data from the overtime survey.
Click on the links in the key questions below (and in all other questions from this survey) to access full benchmarking data on each of the following key findings, then apply filters to view data by sector, organisation size, region and a range of other factors:
- Does your organisation know what it spends on overtime pay each year?
- What premia are your organisation’s employees paid for working overtime?
- Is there an earnings or grade cut-off point above which overtime is not paid?
- What percentage of your workforce put in paid overtime regularly?
- How much unpaid overtime do employees at your organisation work?
You can also access XpertHR’s detailed written analysis of the overtime survey findings: Overtime pay survey 2012.
- Find out more about XpertHR Benchmarking.
HR data blog post round-up: October 2012
Here’s our latest monthly pick of top blog posts on HR data issues from XpertHR’s blogs and other blogs:
- Sharlyn Lauby: Top 5 Reasons Employees Leave Your Company
A very interesting piece from Sharlyn Lauby, looking at research comparing the views of HR on why employees leave jobs with those of jobseekers. As Sharlyn notes, the data presented here “illustrate how critical it is for us to truly understand why employees stay with the company and why they leave. And when asked the question, does the company really know?”
- Charlie Judy: Analyze Your Workforce: People First, Numbers Second
Charlie asks (and answers) a great question in this post from this month’s HR Technology Conference in Chicago (aka #HRTechConf): “Can you be a people person and a numbers person at the same time?” Charlie also provides a great definition of “big data”: “Big data isn’t just about data. It’s about how you do something with it. It’s about bringing data to life – making it jump from the page where it has sat for so many years and just stared back at us. If you can’t draw conclusions, connect dots, or tell a story from the data you’re giving, that data is dead.” Brilliant post. If you want to read more about the key trends from this year’s #HRTechConf, then check out XpertHR’s social media overview of the event.
- Employers increasing HR technology spend to boost growth
“Despite the obvious pressure on budgets over the past few years, many companies have decided that investment cannot be postponed any longer as HR departments face pressure to adapt and update the way services are delivered,” says Mike DiClaudio of Towers Watson. Here, Personnel Today reports in detail on Towers Watson data looking at employers’ HR technology spend. Click here to access the Towers Watson research.
- China Gorman: Hiring is Broken
A great post from China Gorman’s Data Point Tuesday series, looking at data which reveal the inherent problems in the recruiment process. China’s conclusion about what the data tell us is compelling: “This is one of those areas of talent management like performance management where everyone, all the stakeholders, knows that the current systems dont work. And they dont work with a vengeance. But getting it to the top of the to do list for action never seems to happen. So yeah: hiring is broken. And yeah, fixing it could be really easy. The real question is: why havent we moved hiring to the top of the to-do list? Hiring will continue to be the stuff of nightmares until we decide to fix it. It might be that simple.”
Latest additions to XpertHR Benchmarking
XpertHR Benchmarking – XpertHR’s unique interactive HR benchmarking data resource – keeps growing!
We’ve added a number of major HR benchmarking datasets to XpertHR Benchmarking.
- You can find full details of them here: What’s new in XpertHR Benchmarking.
- Subscribers to XpertHR Benchmarking can drill down into the complete results data from each of these surveys – which cover all aspects of the work of HR professionals and employment practitioners – to generate bespoke reports on how their organisation compares.
The XpertHR Benchmarking data resource is growing all the time, with new survey datasets being added every month:
Click here to see the full range of more than 110 essential HR benchmarking datasets that are available to XpertHR Benchmarking subscribers.
- Click here to take part in the latest XpertHR Benchmarking surveys, and to see a list of upcoming survey topics.
About XpertHR’s HR data round-up
XpertHR’s round-up of HR data for October 2012 is the latest instalment in an ongoing monthly series, highlighting latest HR data releases from XpertHR and other sources, alongside links to news stories and blog posts of direct or indirect relevance to issues around using HR data.
If there are any HR-related data measures you would like to see covered in future XpertHR data round-ups, or if there are any surveys or HR data blog posts that you would like to see highlighted, please do get in touch. You can submit comments via the box below, or contact me directly via Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+.
XpertHR data round-up archive
Catch up with all the posts in XpertHR’s data round-up series!
- HR data round-up September 2012: Back to basics on performance management?
- HR data round-up August 2012: Are we seeing a downward trend in absence rates?
- HR data round-up July 2012: Benchmarking planned redundancies
- HR data round-up June 2012: The costs and benefits of the 2012 Olympics
- HR data round-up May 2012: The changing ratios of HR to employees
- HR data round-up April 2012: IT pay trends; private sector pay forecasts & more!
- The HR data tapes: HR lifers; CIPD qualifications; workforce analytics, & more!
- HR data round-up March 2012: Tough times for graduates
- HR data round-up February 2012: Are employers losing the battle to combat work-related stress?
- HR data round-up January 2012: What is the ideal employee to HR ratio in 2012?
- HR data round-up, December 2011: Christmas working and minimum office temperatures
- HR data round-up November 2011: Why did you get into HR?
- HR data round-up October 2011: National minimum wage; HR data visualisation; & using HR data effectively
- HR data round-up September 2011: Benchmarking absence; social media ROI; & latest HR data blog posts
- HR data round-up July 2011: HR careers, absence & turnover
- XpertHR data round-up, June 2011: Company cars, commuting, benchmarking & labour disputes
- XpertHR data round-up, May 2011: HR benchmarking data, absence & hand-drawn charts
