IT Employee Clever Pay Discovery: About 20 years ago, a techie, whom I will refer to as “Bob,” got caught in the middle of a dramatic confrontation with his employer. Being an IT expert with a knack for computers since childhood, Bob developed a deep knowledge of software systems, especially an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) program that seemed to connect all things together in a company—sales, inventory, payroll, and customer relations. This makes him such a valuable asset at his latest job in the province of Ontario, Canada, at a service and distribution company.
It was when the company was planning to overhaul the antiquated systems and integrating the ERP software he had been urging them to get for so long. Inculcating such software is not easy, since every department needs to be informed, and it is that job that fell right in Bob’s lap. With months of grueling on-site training and infinite debugging, everything was chugging along as scheduled. That was all put in disarray, though, when the firm decided to expand across different time zones.
The messages and orders from Atlantic Canada began arriving by 6:30 a.m. in Ontario and those from Pacific Canada till as late as 6 p.m. This extended Bob’s working hours at both ends. The demand required his boss to place staggered shifts on him and his colleague as he had to start working at 6 a.m. Bob was left alone in the IT department doing everything from software training to hardware troubleshooting after his colleague refused to accept the new hours and quit.
His employer rebuffed Bob’s request for a raise or overtime pay, citing Ontario law as exempting IT specialists from overtime pay. Bob had had enough.
He being the sole IT manager in the company with access to the ERP system came up with this strategy. The Ontario labor act requires overtime pay when employees work more than 44 hours in a week; however, it is not applicable to managerial and supervisors. It took Bob some clicks on the keyboard of his computer to print reports showing every non-managerial employee login and logout time, which dated all the way back to when the firm started the ERP program. The results revealed that most employees had worked for more than 44 hours a week, effectively putting in overtime hours without pay.
During Bob’s job searching process, he left the employer with a parting gift. Immediately after he quit, he sent emails to each and every one of them under the title, “You’re Legally Entitled to Overtime Pay.” Attached to it was an Excel sheet detailing hours they had put in with his contact details of an employment lawyer in case they would like him to sue the employer and receive overtime compensation.
The aftermath was quick and pricey for the company. Almost all employees lined up with the lawyer, demanding back pay for their time unpaid overtime. In the end, Bob’s employer had to shell out thousands in overtime—a huge sum of money that they could have avoided entirely had they just been upfront about compensating him from the start.
TL;DR
Denied overtime pay, an overworked IT manager uses company records to expose unpaid overtime hours and leads to massive payouts to employees.
FAQs
1. What were the reasons against the company by the IT employee?
The reason that the employee acted in this manner is because he unpaid overtime and refused several times for compensation.
2. How did the employee utilize the ERP system to support the colleagues?
They provided overtime proof documents and contacted workers to a lawyer.
3. How did it affect the business?
The company also faced huge back pay claims and penalties for unfair labor practices.
