Overtime approval form and policy for a restaurant: plan it, approve it, pay it

Overtime in a small restaurant rarely starts as a decision. A closer stays to finish the deep clean, an opener picks up a Saturday, someone swaps into a double, and by Sunday night three people are over 40 hours and the labor line is up. Nobody approved it, and it still has to be paid.

An overtime policy doesn't stop you from using overtime. It makes it a choice: planned on the schedule, approved before the shift, and reviewed every week. This post gives you the policy, a request form, a weekly review sheet and the federal rules that decide what you owe.

General information, not legal advice. Federal law sets the floor below. Several states add daily overtime, seventh-day rules or other premiums, and your state's rules apply on top.

The federal rules that matter

• Over 40 hours in a workweek is paid at time and a half. Covered employees "must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half" their regular rates of pay (DOL Fact Sheet #23).
• The workweek is fixed. "An employee's workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours—seven consecutive 24-hour periods." It can start on any day and hour, but once set, it stays put, and it can be changed only if the change is meant to be permanent and isn't designed to evade overtime (29 CFR 778.105).
• Each week stands alone. The law "does not permit averaging of hours over 2 or more weeks": 30 hours one week and 50 the next means 10 hours of overtime in the second week (29 CFR 778.104).
• No federal daily overtime or weekend premium. The FLSA "does not require overtime pay for work on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, or regular days of rest, as such" (Fact Sheet #23). Some states do have daily overtime; California, for example, pays it after 8 hours in a day. See your state's pay-rules page for the rules that apply on top.

Unapproved overtime is still overtime

This is the part an approval policy can't change:

• "Work not requested but suffered or permitted is work time" (29 CFR 785.11). The closer who stays to finish the floor has worked those minutes.
• "An announcement by the employer that no overtime work will be permitted, or that overtime work will not be compensated unless authorized in advance, will not impair the employee's right to compensation for work which he is actually suffered or permitted to perform" (29 CFR 778.316).
• And the job of stopping it is the employer's: "it is the duty of the management to exercise its control and see that the work is not performed if it does not want it to be performed. … The mere promulgation of a rule against such work is not enough. Management has the power to enforce the rule and must make every effort to do so" (29 CFR 785.13).

So the policy has two halves: you can require approval and coach people who skip it, but you always pay for the time worked. Never edit punches down to 40, never "bank" hours into next week, and never pay overtime as straight time in cash.

The policy

Adapt the bracketed parts and put it in your employee handbook.

[Restaurant name] — Overtime policy

1. What counts. Our workweek runs from [Monday 12:00 a.m.] to [Sunday 11:59 p.m.]. Overtime is every hour worked over 40 in that week [and, in our state, over [8] in a day]. All overtime is paid at [1.5×] your regular rate.

2. Overtime is approved in advance. Before you work a shift, trade or pick-up that will take you over [40] hours, or stay past your shift end by more than [15] minutes, get approval from [the manager on duty / the GM], using the overtime request form or by [text to the GM].

3. Managers approve only when it's needed: coverage for a call-out, a large catering order or event, a planned project, or an emergency. They look first for someone who isn't near overtime.

4. If you work overtime without approval, you will be paid for every minute. Working unapproved overtime again after a reminder is handled through our normal coaching steps.

5. Clock in and out at your real times. Don't work before you clock in or after you clock out, and don't let anyone ask you to. Report it to [the owner] if it happens.

6. Managers check the overtime report every [Thursday] and before approving any trade or pick-up.

I have read and understand this policy. Name: ………………………… Signature: ………………………… Date: ……………

The overtime request form

One page, filled in before the shift. A manager can fill it in for the person when the request comes by phone or text.

Overtime request · Week of [date]

Employee signature: ………………………… Manager signature: …………………………

The unapproved overtime note

For time worked without approval. It doesn't change what you pay; it's the record for coaching and for finding the cause.

Often the cause is the schedule, not the person: one closer for a two-person close, or a prep list that doesn't fit the shift. Fix that first.

The weekly overtime review

Run it on [Thursday], with the rest of the week still ahead, and again after the week closes.

After the week closes: approved overtime hours ……… · unapproved ……… · overtime cost $……… · as a share of total labor ………%

Watch the people who work at more than one of your locations: for the same employer, their hours count together toward the 40. Our post on sharing staff between locations (coming Dec 4) covers that, and the weekly labor cost review puts the overtime cost next to sales.

Keeping surprise overtime off the schedule

• Build the schedule to 40. Check every person's weekly hours before you publish, not after.
• Check trades and pick-ups. A swap that moves a Saturday double onto someone already at 36 hours is a new overtime decision; treat its approval like an overtime request. Our shift swap form has an overtime line.
• Watch the edges of the shift. Fifteen minutes early five days a week plus a long close is easily two hours a week.
• Size the close. If closers stay late every night, the closing list doesn't fit the shift.
• Plan peak weeks. For holidays and season, decide in advance who may go over and by how much; see season scheduling (coming Nov 20).

Your overtime policy checklist

• [ ] Workweek start day and hour written down, and the same in payroll
• [ ] Your state's daily overtime or other premiums checked
• [ ] Policy signed by every employee and manager
• [ ] Request form used before any shift, trade or pick-up that goes over 40
• [ ] Unapproved overtime paid in full, noted and coached
• [ ] Punches never edited to hide overtime
• [ ] Weekly review on [Thursday], and again after the week closes
• [ ] Shared staff's hours added up across your locations

Where Mays fits

• Your workweek and thresholds. Under Scheduling → Settings → Workweek & overtime, admins set Schedule week starts on, the Weekly OT threshold (40 unless you change it), the OT multiplier and, where you need them, daily overtime and double time. Overtime pay uses these settings; with Labor law compliance on, each location pays the more protective of them and the overtime law at its address. See Scheduling settings and Labor & compliance.
• Overtime on the schedule before you publish. The OT warnings card lists everyone whose shifts that week run into overtime, with their overtime hours, and the week's labor cost includes the overtime the shifts carry. See Building the weekly schedule.
• The weekly review. The Weekly Overtime report shows each person's hours worked, hours still scheduled, projected hours, overtime hours and estimated overtime cost. It's made for planning before the week starts: once the week is under way, it counts shifts already worked twice, so read it with care mid-week. See Scheduling reports.
• Fewer minutes at the edges. On the location's Time clock card, Prevent early clock-in stops clock-ins before the shift start minus the grace period, turning off Allow punch without a shift stops clock-ins on a day with no shift, and Auto punch-out closes forgotten punches at a set time. See Grace periods, rounding and auto-approval.
• Every change is approved. Open-shift claims and trades wait for a manager under Scheduling → Approvals. See The approvals inbox.
• Ask about it. Connected to ChatGPT or Claude, Mays answers "Who's going into overtime this week?" from hours already clocked plus hours still scheduled. See Connect Mays to ChatGPT or Claude.

What Mays doesn't do yet: there's no overtime request type for staff to send, and an open-shift claim or a trade is approved without a warning that it puts the person into overtime. The approval card does say when the person already works at that time. Check the OT warnings card or the Weekly Overtime report before you approve, and keep the request form for the record.

Choose it, then pay it

Overtime you planned for a catering Saturday is a business decision. Overtime you find on Monday is a scheduling problem. Approve it before the shift, pay every minute either way, and use the weekly review to fix the schedule that caused the surprise.

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