Managing a construction project can sometimes be compared to working a jigsaw puzzle. There are many pieces that need to match up perfectly to complete the “big picture.” One large problem many contractors wrestle with is overtime.

Should we schedule overtime? Who will pay the extra cost? How much overtime? This issue causes debates for all parties involved in a construction project, but is overtime really expediting the construction process?

Studies on this subject conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, Proctor and Gamble Company, the Business Roundtable, the National Electrical Contractors Association, and the Mechanical Contractors Association of America produced similar results. All of them showed that continuing scheduled overtime has a strong negative effect on productivity which increases as more overtime hours are scheduled over a longer length of time. Abandoning the overtime schedule appears to be the only effective remedy.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics study evaluated what happens when scheduled overtime is discontinued. That study showed a dramatic jump in productivity per hour upon return to a 40-hour week.

There are several contributing factors to the decline in productivity during an overtime schedule. Work Pace Inertia Industrial engineers have found when the hours of work increase, there is a tendency to adjust the pace to accomplish about the same amount of work in an extended workday or workweek as was accomplished before the extension.

Absenteeism Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Bulletin 917 states, “ the longer the hours, the more scheduled worktime lost through absenteeism.” Absenteeism of even a few employees seriously disrupts scheduled daily operations and reduces total project efficiency.

Accidents The BLS Bulletin explains that injuries also increased as hours increased, not only in absolute numbers, but also in rate of incidence. In most of the observed instances, the number of injuries per million hours worked was much higher at the longer hours.”

Fatigue In work such as construction, which is not machine-paced and which requires sustained physical effort as well as mental alertness, fatigue obviously reduced productivity during all hours worked. The BLS Bulletin indicates that: “For hours above eight per day and 48 per week, it usually took three hours of work to produce two additional hours of output when work was light. When the work was heavy, it took about two hours of work to produce one hour of additional output.”

Morale and Attitude Fatigue causes a deterioration in morale and positive attitude. In addition, continuing expensive overtime can quickly result in an attitude that, “cost means nothing to the customer, so why should we workers worry about efficiency?”

Turnover Turnover can be expected at an accelerating rate as overtime schedules continue because of fatigue, poor morale and attitude, and lack of economic need to continue working.

Job Shopping In an area where one or more large project has scheduled overtime, workers seem to spend more effort finding the project having the highest premiums than in getting the work accomplished.

Supervision Problems Supervisory employees are likely to feel the fatiguing and demoralizing effects of prolonged overtime schedules even more than production workers. Loss of key supervisors during a construction job can have highly detrimental effects and such a loss can be expected on a job with prolonged overtime due to illness or resignations because of overwork.

Stacking of Trades Scheduled overtime almost always distorts the orderly sequence schedule originally adopted. The result is space conflicts and mixing of employees of different crews and contractors.

Pressure for More Overtime It is common for jobs with scheduled overtime to have work pressures for more overtime and slowdowns among workers receiving less overtime pay than others.

Should overtime scheduling be necessary for the completion of the construction project, the following actions may be used to decrease the productivity losses.

• Use of travel payment. Instead of additional man-hours, induce workers to remote locations with travel payments.
• Employment of additional shifts. One or two additional shifts are often more productive than shifts on extended overtime.
• Use of additional crew. An additional crew can provide time off without work interruption.
• Periodic work shutdown. In a seven-day schedule, periodic work shutdowns over a Sunday or weekend can help.
• Alternating crews. Premium pay is minimized using two alternating crews, each working four 10-hour days with four days on and four days off.

Each construction project brings its own individual challenges. The negative effects of overtime can be combated with the use of alternate scheduling and offering alternative benefits.

SMACNA members interested in reviewing copies of these studies should contact SMACNA’s Labor Relations Department at (703) 803-2980.