How much of your company runs on uncompensated overtime?

When you look at your company's bottom line.  Where in the ledger does it count unpaid overtime?  Is there a line where salaried employees should show how many hours beyond 40 hours a week they put in?
Company: Oh well we are hiring them to get something done.  It's project based.  We don't know.  Did they make the deadline?  That's on them.

Yes yes,  but all of that comes down to one item.  Does your bottom line depend on free labor?  Does your profit depend on the dedicated attention to your bottom line for people that are not being reimbursed for it?  Is THAT why people are paid salary?  So they can be worked for apparent deadlines that are artificial in nature?  Why does it make sense to work people beyond the standard acceptable hours and then proudly claim that work as your profit?

Company: Competition makes us do it!

Well that could be.  It looks to me to be more of a mix of greed and pride.  When you are competing, are you competing for your survival?  or are you just taking advantage of your employees desire to please you?  As a company you shouldn't swagger about your great contributions to charity if those contributions are stealing from your employees.

Company:  It's not stealing!  we give generous benefits! we pay their salary!
Yes you do.  But if you advertised 'We need someone that is willing to work 60+ hours a week any  time we change our minds (and that is often)' you would find that the price for that position would be MUCH higher.  A company should  punish overtime due to bad planning, instead, you reward it in your executives.  That is not only sad, it's ultimately criminal.  The criminality is you have stolen time from your employees and converted that time to your profit.  There is no value for any man/woman that is beyond that of their time.

If you are your own boss.  If you are the founder.  You work day and night to achieve your 'Dream'.  That's good for you.  It's great in fact.  But to expect that other people should follow that example at your behest with nothing to support it but your dream of the future doesn't make sense.  The dream is YOURS not theirs.  They will never have your dream or the enthusiasm for your dream no matter how much they nod their heads nervously trying to protect their jobs by telling you what you want to hear.  Some companies enact profit sharing.  But take a close look at the profit they are sharing.  Does it seem to be worth it?  Are executive bonuses above and beyond that share?  The only way it makes sense is to pay commensurate with time spent.  If that converts everyone to hourly that's fine.  if that's a pro rated rate based on 40 hour weeks afterwards.  great.  

Company:  But then you'll gold brick and not work until it gets to 40 hours
If that's how you view your employees, you should let them go.  All of them.

Maybe it should be public knowledge within the company what executives make in both pay and bonuses.  

Company:  But that will demotivate the rank and file!!  That would be insanity!  

So you admit it?

Just remember, based on what a company produces in a quarter every employee is underpaid by whatever profit is created.  I'm not saying that those people deserve that money.  The continuing cost of R&D and development for the future certainly must be taken into account.  There is a line where being rewarded for your good ideas crosses over to being rewarded for taking advantage of your employees.

When you expect professionals to be 'on call' virtually all the time.  When you believe that travel shouldn't count as work.  When you explain 'That's the way it's always been done'  Lets turn it around and see how you feel.  How?  Take the time you track and penalize the executives by how much overtime it took to bring a project to the 'finish line'.  Managers will be MUCH less willing to agree to hair brained ideas that come late due to a lack of planning (what is an executives job again?)  Pay employees their daily rate for travel.  No, you don't get to expect they will work on the plane.  They might, but it can't be expected.  Why?  Because they are traveling at your behest.  They are staying in that hotel because you thought it was necessary.  The travel IS work.  Some companies force people to double up in the hotel room.  This adds insult to injury.  You aren't saving enough by making me travel by your instruction for free, but now I have to split my room?  Pathetic.   

Company:  Ok, you are really sounding like some kind of communist.  Next you'll be talking about dialectic evolution and acquiring the means of production.  If I had to do what you are suggesting, I would have to tell the share holders that they can't make the money they are used to.  I would be unable to collect my surprisingly big bonus.  If you think we are going to have our money taken from us because suddenly for what you consider fair treatment, you are sadly mistaken.  I worked days on end for 18 hours a day barely taking time to eat or sleep to realize this company.  I risked and I gambled money, friends and family for the company you are taking for granted quite frankly.  When I went public with this company, it's valuation came by my hand.  making sure we survived with as little as possible.  You think you clock punchers have any idea what kind of effort that takes?  It takes more than passion,  it takes mania.  It takes insanity.  You can't expect me to hand over my dream to people that don't even care about it?  If I can't take profits and put them back into R&D and the future of the company pushing as hard as I can, I feel like we won't make it.  The competition will eat us alive.  I didn't get to the top by just rolling over and saying go ahead and tear me apart, and I won't start now.  

Good for you.  You've worked hard for this company.  You've created a going concern.  You did risk a lot to get there.  But that was then.  There was a point that you were MORE than compensated for it.  This is now.  I would really be scared to think that you've risen to this level in the marketplace by regularly taking advantage of people you've hired and in doing so avoid paying taxes as well.  You are projecting the effort of your past to equate the passion for your future.  You can't do ALL the work at that level.  nobody can.  You can't expect people without your vision to pay for your vision.  Hiring sycophant sociopath managers to nickel and dime your employees for every free bit of time you can should be embarrassing.  

Companies have been taking advantage of a lot of things for free for too long.  You are constantly asking employees to do 'whatever it takes'.  What if whatever it takes is to plan for a calm and orderly project completion?  Maybe 'whatever it takes' means to compensate your employees on a graduated scale.  1.5 times time for any hour over 40 a week.  2 times for an hour over 45.  5 times for an hour over 50.  Why?  Because time is a precious commodity for everyone not just you.  I can't tell you how many time's I've put effort in overnight for an emergency of the company only to be told that after I come in for the 9 AM meeting I can take 1/2 a day off and 'recharge' like I'm a machine.  Those kind of times would be much more rare if you returned the value you were taking.  Maybe that's 'whatever it takes'.  So the next time you stand in front of your beleaguered employees giving them that 'bonus' that looks more like someone pitched in for the french fries that were already in the happy meal, patting yourself on the back for being such an industry leader, remember:  

    If you divide that bonus (if you give one at all) into the time the employee gave you for FREE, not only is it not a bonus, it's a real show of how much value you really place on the time of your people.  

Please don't think I mean that giving more money is the answer, because it isn't.  The answer is to plan with sanity and deliberation.  Give your employees clear expectations.  Make plans that make sense.  Don't make promises you can't keep and then expect free time provided by your employees to honor your word.  Decrease requirements for successful completion when you see that it's too much.  Don't take more time from your employees than you are willing to pay for.  

Is it so bad to be fair to your employees?