Clerk Overtime

Question

The overtime of the Clerk is approved by the Chair of HR. All other overtime is approved by the Clerk, who is the line manager for all other staff  and our process says it should be approved in advance. We have a recurring problem where each time the Clerk goes on holiday, they put a claim in for overtime in the weeks after returning to work, to "catch up". Often this time is not agreed in advance. Obviously some overtime - for example to attend training courses in the evenings or take the minutes at Council meetings is perfectly reasonable and can be agreed in advance. However, I have become increasingly uncomfortable agreeing to authorise overtime after the event. The Clerk manages there own time during normal hours - there is no micromanagement. Am I being unfair in expecting prior agreement in non emergency cases to expect pre-agreement for other overtime? The alternate appears to be to allow him to decide whether they accrue it.

Answer 1

As the clerk is on holiday, would the other staff might not need to be working extra hours to cover some of their work?

Unless you have cogent suspicion that they are making false overtime claims then maybe the best course of action is to keep out of it. Either you trust your staff or you don't. If you make it clear you don't trust them you are unlikely to ever have happy staff working at their best. From what you say it appears that it is not even you that is responsible for HR matters. Again unless you have cogent suspicion then just leave it to the person that does.

The nature of unplanned overtime is that you don't always know its going to occur until it does occur. Trying to contact a councillor to get authorisation is not as easy as asking the person who's sat at the desk next to you.

Answer 2

Whilst there's a comment about "other staff" in this post, it's not clear if those "other staff" are able to undertake the work of the clerk so I wouldn't necessarily assume there is someone else to provide holiday cover.  It is very common for clerks, not just those who work alone, to find themselves struggling to catch up after any time off.  Additional hours seem almost inevitable,  It's also difficult to say what's excessive or not as all councils are different, have different responsibilities and services and differing demands on the clerk's time.  Paying for any additional hours is still going to be less expensive than employing a locum to cover the clerk's absence in most cases.

Answer 3

I perhaps have a slightly different take on this.

For me, the issue is not whether overtime is, or is not, necessary; but rather its about authority to work the overtime.

As a (now retired) clerk I always obtained advance authority to work overtime.  That also gave the opportunity to prioritise stuff with the chairman/lead councillor and keep costs to a sensible minimum.

Comments

This is to me the key point. If there is a process that requires overtime to be signed off then surely this should not normally be after the fact as that makes the process redundant?
It is true that the other staff cannot fully cover all the functions of the Clerk in our Parish, though they can cover a fair bit.
I do not see this as being a matter of trust - as others allude to but rather a useful tool to make the Clerk stand back a little and consider the priorities and perhaps delay or delegate less pressing matters rather than soak it up as overtime - which can lead to burn out.