- Casual
- Weekly
- Factory
- Touring
- Other
Overview
Overtime Hours are hours worked in excess of the employee’s agreed or standard working hours as set by the Award.
This may apply to time worked beyond the daily or weekly limit, for example, more than 10h in a day or more than 38h in a week.
Overtime Hours differ from penalty rates.
Due to the nature of the Live Performance Industry, with MPH’s work being dependent on many third parties (and even the weather!), most employees can expect to work overtime at some stage. Those working in the industry should consider that at times, the on-time delivery of Jobs may depend on employees being available outside scheduled hours.
The company recognises that employees may choose to accept, decline, or negotiate offers of overtime due to commitments outside of work and department managers work to minimise overtime wherever possible; because
- Employees should be able to enjoy a healthy work/life balance; and
- To manage fatigue; and
- To manage costs to the company.
Overtime is never guaranteed and will always be irregular.
Payment for Overtime
All employees receive compensation when overtime is worked, but how that occurs varies by employment classification.
For details refer to:
Notice period for overtime requests
Managers and Supervisors make a best effort to give employees at least 3-hours’ notice of overtime being requested, but that much notice may not always be possible. For example,
➡️ Ezra’s supervisor has rostered their Ordinary Hours to be 08:30 to 16:35. A truck is due to arrive and be unloaded at 15:30, allowing one hour for the truck unload before work ends for the day.
At 15:45 the truck driver calls to advise they still 30 minutes away 😢(ETA 16:15) – Ezra and their colleagues are requested to work 45 minutes overtime to unload the truck.
Ezra’s manager could not give the best-effort three-hour notice for overtime as is preferred and Ezra may have commitments outside of work that prevent them from being able to accept the overtime.
Triggers for overtime
Examples of events that may impact the scheduled start or end of a shift (and thus trigger a request for overtime) include,
- Production Schedules set by MPH clients
- Unforeseen changes to trucking schedules
- Delayed delivery of equipment
- Equipment faults
- Another department causes delays during a load-in or load-out
- Employees on unexpected Leave
Overtime Hours are only worked with explicit Manager / Supervisor approval on case-by-case basis. Some examples include,
✅ Manager / Supervisor requests the employee to work overtime on a specific day for a specific reason.
❌ An employee stays back because they want to earn some extra money this week.
❌ An employee feels a sense of obligation to complete unfinished tasks in overtime.
❌ An employee likes to “beat the traffic” and get a jump start on work so they arrive at work at 07:00, even though they are rostered to start at 08:00.
❌ An employee’s work was performed slowly, so they to go into overtime to complete the assigned tasks.
❌ Employees chatting after work ends but before clocking off and goes into overtime.
If an employee identifies that Overtime Hours are necessary (rather than being asked by a Manager / Supervisor), as soon as the issue becomes apparent, they raise the matter with their Manager / Supervisor who must explicitly approve it on a case-by-case basis. Managers / Supervisors are required to justify their decision to the Managing Director for overtime for each person, each time it occurs.
When employees work Overtime Hours, the hours are flagged for review during the Payroll Process by the employee’s manager.