Management and Control of Overtime Costs
Management and Control of Overtime Costs
Summary
The paper is based on the review of peer article “Management and Control of Overtime Costs” that has been written by Thomas P. DiNapoli in 2012. Thomas P. DiNapoli (2012) in the article made an attempted to analyze the effectiveness and control system of overtime costs of HHC’s (New York City Health and Hospital Corporation) employees. For the attainment of this purpose, the researcher audited the organization from 1st January 2006 to 31st December 2009.
Background
DiNapoli analyzed the overtime payments of 2009 of 54 employees of HHC. The research presents the salaries according to the type of employees and their overtime earnings. It has been determined that the hospital was understaffed and for the fulfillment of responsibilities was asking for overtime to its employees. The reason of being understaffed was the hiring freeze. Through increasing over time and reducing 2500 positions, the hospital saved $200 million. It was expected that those saving would reach $300 million after achieving the reduction of 3750 positions.
Analysis
It has been determined that the hospital is not able to manage its overtime effectively, and workers were doing more overtime than the maximum of 3 shifts in a week; even some were doing six shifts. Access overtime in health care sector means higher risk to patient health; therefore, it is pivotal for the organization to keep control on overtime shifts. For the achievement of the research objective, the data of corporate office of Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC) and its six acute care facilities was collected. The performance audit was conducted through the utilization of generally accepted government auditing standards. It has been determined that the overtime costs are occurring in each Department of Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC), and several employees are being paid a considerable amount in the account of overtime. Even the yearly overtime of these employees exceed the annual salary of these employees. It has been determined that most of the workers in Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC), were working more than three shifts and put the health of patients at risk. The researcher recommended the hospital should search for the ways of reducing overtime cost and adapt best HHC’s practices when choose to work overtime. It was recommended in the article that the company should establish and apply controls that can prevent employees from working excessive shifts and for this purpose; the hospital should set particular percentage or dollar on the reduction of the goal of overtime.
The overall paper was aim to discuss the effectiveness of overtime costs of employees by targeting New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. The paper discloses that the hospital is not using overtime effectively, and the overtime costs are higher than the cost that hospital saved through reducing employees. Therefore, it has been recommended to the hospital to use corrective measures and best practices for reducing the illegal overtimes and costs so the effectiveness of the overtime can be enhanced and associated costs can be reduced while improving health care quality.
It has been scrutinized that the article used the data from 2006 to 2009 and gathered data from 54 members of Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC). For further research, the researcher should gather more data, should include more employees and should not be limited to the healthcare industry, as results of this research cannot be applied to any other industry.
Reference
DiNapoli, T. P. (2012). Management and Control of Overtime Costs. New York State Office of the State Comptroller. 15, 1-21.
