Does volunteering count as overtime? Does the company need to pay overtime?

Don't use "voluntary" as a cover, okay? Few people in the world are willing to work overtime voluntarily for free. As long as a small number of employees work overtime voluntarily for their careers, the purpose of this small number of employees is self-growth, not whether they have overtime pay. So this question is actually a "false proposition".

Most employees "voluntarily" work overtime for various reasons, and they certainly hope to get reasonable overtime pay. From the point of view of labor law, employers must pay overtime fees or implement the system of holidays to extend working hours. However, in the workplace, employees are in a weak position, employers do not give overtime pay, and employees have no choice. Although employees can win by simply complaining, for most employees, the cost of safeguarding rights is too high.

China implements an eight-hour working day, five days a week, and the working hours per week shall not exceed forty hours. If the working hours need to be extended due to work, overtime pay or vacation suspension is required. Overtime on weekdays needs to be paid 1.5 times of daily wage, overtime on weekends needs to be paid twice of daily wage, and overtime on legal holidays needs to be paid three times of daily wage. This is common sense, but in the ideal, it is impossible to meet. Among them, it is very important whether you work overtime voluntarily or arranged by your company.

The main concepts are as follows:

Voluntary overtime, no overtime pay.

Rules of Labor Law: "If the employer arranges employees to work outside the statutory standard working hours according to actual needs, it is necessary to pay overtime pay or arrange holidays". What's the point? The unit asks you to work overtime, but the unit doesn't let you work overtime. You are willing to work overtime, which is not in the category of overtime. You can't work overtime.

Please remember that most companies (enterprises and units) have an overtime application system. You can only work overtime if the boss approves you to work overtime, and then you are eligible to ask for overtime pay. However, most companies will not seriously implement the overtime approval system, and often the boss verbally greets: everyone will work overtime at night to complete this project. A conscientious unit counts you as working overtime, while a heartless unit does not recognize you as working overtime.

Instead, there are many heartless companies. Therefore, if you want to work overtime, you must use various skills, such as sending emails, sending text messages, filling out overtime cards, and making overtime records. To solidify the "evidence" of overtime, as long as you go to arbitration, then the unit must give you overtime pay, provided that you turn against the boss and the unit.

Second, many units evade overtime pay in disguise.

One is tempting overtime. For example, many large factories have an annual salary of several hundred thousand per capita. If overtime pay is an astronomical figure, in order to use employees' time in vain and reduce the hourly wage cost of the unit, they take the temptation of "free midnight snack at 7 pm, free shuttle bus at 10 pm and reimbursement of taxi fare at 12 pm" to induce employees to "voluntarily" work overtime. Hiring one employee is equivalent to hiring 1.5 employees, which is quite cost-effective.

The second is mandatory overtime. This is the boss's usual wrist. The boss didn't ask you to work overtime, but the workload was so heavy that the task was suddenly assigned at the end of the work that employees could hardly finish it without working overtime. If employees don't work overtime and can't finish the task, it will affect the performance appraisal and comprehensive evaluation. For example, your boss labels you unprofessional, unwilling to work and unwilling to make progress, forcing employees to work overtime voluntarily or voluntarily. Don't expect overtime pay. Your boss may also blame you: you can't finish the work, your efficiency is so low, you can be so poor, and it doesn't match the work specifications. How dare you ask for overtime?

The third is to deliberately count overtime. Both the boss and the employer know that the labor cost is too high, and the company earns the labor cost of employees. If one more employee is recruited or the employee does not work overtime, the company may become a loss. The company deliberately recruited fewer employees, and the task of five people recruited three people to do it. How can you not work overtime? Therefore, in order to trick employees into working overtime, bosses are good at drawing cakes, pouring chicken soup and giving employees chicken blood: you should complete your fantasy and grow up with the company, and when you go public, you will complete your financial freedom. You should regard overtime as a blessing. You don't work overtime for the company, but for your own fantasy. Fool employees into boiling blood, work overtime foolishly, and count money to the boss after applying.

Third, the definition of overtime should be judged according to the facts.

Of course, the Labor Law stipulates that "overtime should be paid only if arranged by the employer." Employees who voluntarily work overtime belong to overtime work and do not need to pay overtime. However, the labor law, after all, protects the disadvantaged employees, and can't completely listen to the employers. We must stop taking "down-to-earth" as the standard to identify "factual overtime". It's like "You live with a woman, have children, and say you can't be single dog". This is a de facto marriage.

Employers extend employees' working hours in disguise, and employees are forced to work overtime "voluntarily", which also belongs to "factual overtime". Employees only need to produce evidence to prove that you have to work overtime outside normal working hours because the employer has assigned too many tasks or reduced personnel, then this is the fact of overtime. If you save the oral recordings, text messages, emails and other evidence that your boss asked you to work overtime, you can also prove that you are "really working overtime".

Finally, I regret to say that the reasonable right to ask for overtime pay cannot be initiated by employees, and the initiative is enforced by the regulatory authorities on employers. There are four difficulties in employees' complaints: first, employees are in a weak position relative to the management, and asking for overtime pay will offend the boss and the management, so they can only swallow it; Second, the cost and expense of rights protection are very high, and employees can only give up rights protection; Third, the employer's legal strength is strong, and the "pit" has long been dug, so employees can't compete with the legal affairs of the unit; Fourth, it is difficult for employees to keep evidence of factual overtime. Therefore, to deal with this problem, employees need to have the awareness and courage to defend their rights, and more importantly, they need to be promoted and supervised by the upper level.