how to eliminate overtime

[Candace Bamber <cbamber -at- CASTEK -dot- COM>]

Hi everyone,
Apologies if this is a bit off topic. I do think "how to eliminate overtime
from our lives" is as much an issue for us writerly folks as for people
working in other types of high tech roles, so I hope you'll bear with me.

I'm on the (currently unnamed) employee satisfaction committee and have
taken on the issue of "over-time" (paid and otherwise) as my area of
responsibility. We are serious about finding ways to reduce (unpaid)
employee overtime, but we have to consider issues of cost and productivity.

Does anyone out there work for a company that successfully implemented an
"overtime reduction" program? May I ask you to share what you did?

Can anyone recommend any good articles or websites that deal with this
issue? Anything on productivity versus hours worked stats would be really
useful as well.

Also, some time ago, I read an article about a company that adopted an
"everybody out by five" policy. The results, if I recall correctly, were
that after an initial period where not much got done, the productivity
level rose significantly and since the people were happier and more
productive, the same amount of work got done as when everyone worked 60
hours a week. That's it for my vague recollection. Does anyone know any
more about this?

Please respond to me directly, and if there seems to be any interest, I
will summarize to the list.  as always, thanks in advance for your help!

It's a beautiful sunny day in Toronto.

Candace

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Candace Bamber
mailto:cbamber -at- castek -dot- com
Castek Software Factory
Toronto, ON
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