The FINANCIAL — According to the survey carried out by The FINANCIAL the majority of companies in Georgia do not have overtime policy at work.
According to the Labour Code of Georgia, people are not allowed to work more than 41 hours a week. This does not include break time. Moreover, the difference between working hours should be no less than 12 hours.
The only companies interviewed that had overtime policy were UGT and JSC Nikora.
“At UGT 35% of employees work overtime and the company pays them bonuses for that,” says Natia Gorjoladze, Head of the Human Resource Management Department at UGT.
“The overtime policy in its true understanding, to pay the employee per hour after working hours, is not yet implemented at our company, though we successfully use this system in food producing plants.
The majority of the employees of JSC Nikora staffed in plants earn wages. So overtime work is calculated by the number of production units produced above planned production.
When demand for the product offered by the company is dynamic because of fasting time or other reasons the employees need to work overtime to satisfy the unexpected demand.
As our co-workers have to work overtime to satisfy the increased demand in that case employees are always paid for their overtime work.
At present, approximately 15% of employees get bonuses monthly,” says Lika Bichnigauri, Human Resource Specialist at JSC Nikora.
According to the Labour Code of Georgia overtime work is considered work performed by the individual that is above the defined time by the contract.
If the working period is not defined by the contract, the overtime work is considered the period above normal working hours which is 41 hours per week.
The conditions of overtime work are based on agreement between employer and employee. (Paragraph 17, Labour Code of Georgia)
At the Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel the staff members have wages based on their working hours during the month.
“In general staff members work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
We actually have control of employees’ working hours and consequently overtime is also controlled, if one individual works more than 164 hours next month we give them some free time,” says Ekaterine Lomidze, HR of Radisson Blu Iveria.
The additional time remuneration system does not exist at ProCredit Bank.
“We have a system that gives our employees the opportunities to work additional hours and then in the next days they can use these extra hours for their personal interests,“ says Tekle Gurielidze, PR manager at ProCredit Bank Georgia.
Levan Gogichadze, Head of the Marketing and PR department at Lukoil, told The FINANCIAL that the company does not encourage employees to work overtime as they have very strict quality and safety standards.
“We do have a bonus system that does not include working overtime, instead quality and efficiency of work is promoted,” says Gogichadze.
“After incorporating three companies under the name Silknet, we are working to form an overtime strategy, a case that is one of the priorities for the company,” says Ketevan Akhobadze, PR Coordinator at Silknet.
According to the Labour Code of Georgia the employer is obliged to fulfil overtime working for two reasons: (1) avoidance of natural disasters or/and the liquidation of its results – without remuneration and (2) the avoidance of industry breakdown or/and the liquidation of its outcomes – with corresponding remuneration.
During the economic crisis many companies in Georgia laid off staff members and so the job loads of others were increased.
“We endured a hard time during the economic crises without any lay-offs and are proud of that. We believe that economic recovery in Georgia will generate more jobs,” says Gogichadze.
“The economic crisis had only a slight effect on our company’s human resources. We offer food and products that generally keep stable sales with insignificant deviation in revenue. Because of that the crisis did not have any effect on individuals’ job enlargement and overtime working,” says Bichnigauri.
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