Investigating overtime management practices at a selected gold mine in the Witwatersrand Basin

Abstract

The use of overtime in organisations is common, albeit, systems and processes for its management are seldom geared for the realisation of the benefit from this practice. Various rationales for overtime exist which range from it being an inherent requirement of some jobs to being a quicker and supposedly cheaper way to acquire critical skills without recruitment. In this case study on a selected gold mine in the Witwatersrand Basin of South Africa, it was sought to obtain management and general employees perspectives on the organisational overtime management practices. A qualitative research approach was adopted using a cross sectional time frame. A questionnaire was used to gather data from purposefully chosen participants from the case organization. A decision to use a questioner was meet in consideration of the fact that the researcher was an employee of the case organization as such use of interview would have arguably yielded biased findings. 91 Participants provided perspectives on the subject under investigation. It was established that the case organisation had formal overtime governance structures in place however, these were not effectively applied to ensure that the overtime risk was mitigated. Three themes emerged which resonated around organisational overtime governance, participant knowledge of overtime management and the role of leadership in overtime management. This study concluded that while the organisation had overtime governance structures and practices in place, leadership was not providing adequate guidance and communication on overtime practice in the organisation. Despite the fact that leadership was not visible in overtime management, the participants displayed high knowledge of organisational overtime management practices and the impact of overtime on the financial performance of the organisation. It is recommended that the organisational leadership should play an active role in overtime management and ensuring effective application of overtime management controls. The application of overtime management controls by senior organisational leadership emerged as an area on which future studies could be focused.