Employee Rights: Rules Related To Overtime And Working Hours

Overtime and working hours play a crucial role in the life of an employee as both of them make sure that the compensation they get for the work they have done is appropriate. Now, if you are fresher, you might not be aware of both these terms and how they impact your salary. You might also not be aware of the rules set by the government in India for the same. So, in this blog, we will first understand what overtime and work hours mean and then look at the rules related to that in India. All of them are told with the ultimate intent to not let you get exploited. 

Let us begin!

Work hours

Working hours are the total number of working hours that an employee is supposed to complete to get full payment for the day. If he or she fails to complete these work hours, then he or she doesn’t get the full payment and get paid just for the half day. However, rest assured that employers cannot be unreasonable in their demand from you in this context. The employers cannot ask the employee to work for 12 hours on a stretch or so. 

Overtime

The amount of time that an employee works in addition to his normal working hours in known as overtime. According to the law, employees who do overtime should be paid for the hours. However, if as an employee, you are claiming a half an hour overtime payment or so then you are also being unreasonable. 

Rules for overtime and working hours are listed below. Remember, whether you use payroll software in India or work like those who don’t try to work with people that 

• The regular working hours for a week cannot exceed 40 hours. 
• If the nature of the job is such or the employee has to work for sometime for more than the working hours then he or she should be paid accordingly.
• Monday is said to be the first week of the day, the on call time can be claimed to be 48 hours in that case for a period of 4 weeks in total or 50 hours according to the calendar month.
• At the time of calculating overtime, or compensatory off, the regular time or on-call time of the employee should be treated as the regular one.
•  In case of overtime, the calendar year should not exceed more than 200 hours, 48 hours per employee, or 50 hours over a month in a calendar. 
• Apart from the general overtime, the excess of the same cannot go beyond 150 hours for an employee if there is no special reason for doing so or a solution. 
• The extra time invested which includes general overtime or extra overtime should not go beyond 48 hours over a period of four weeks or 50 hours in a calendar month. 
• The Section 10b states that working time for every seven days may amount to an average of 48 hours. So, while calculating the same, annual leaves, absences, CSLs should be treated as number of hours worked. You can search a good software so you don’t have to put so much thought in the salary calculation by typing “payroll software India” and then selecting the best software for your company!