Overtime Measurements

Clarendon

I'm trying to measure overtime in terms of a percent of total salaries. Is there an industry standard widely accepted across the board for most industries as a breaking point? In other words, is 5%, 8%, 12%, etc. too much overtime in relation to total salaries? What is too much in your opinion?

Down_the_Middle

I know of no benchmark data that'll alert you to the org's capacity to incur overtime. Each org is vastly different. Our annual overtime (large hospital w/satellite services) runs about 3.0% of total salaries. It's within industry norms, altho higher than we desire and we're focusing on reducing it. I know of other health facilities that repeatedly incur 6-8% for overtime and they're quite satisfied that this is the best they can do. You might try BNA or DOL sites and search for overtime metrics. You'll find some industry avg's and can then decide what you want to do.