Overtime

Don’t ever work more than 44 hours a week on average. We do not do overtime.

Consistently working more than 44 hours a week will cause you to burnout and that is not in the best interest of you, your teammates or Treefrog.

All Frogs are expected to work between 40 and 44 hours per week in return for the value of their salary. Frogs are not permitted to unilaterally work beyond their regular work hours without prior approval from the CEO.

ESA regulations clearly state Treefrog is obligated to pay overtime for any hour over 44 hours worked every week by Non-Exempt Frogs. However, our salaried, flexible, managed work environment (with very few punishments for missing deadlines or leaving early to go to the Doctor and lots of internal fun-time) has no reason to compel you to ever work more than an average of 44 billable hours a week unless all hell has broken loose. Ergo, as a rule, we don’t do overtime - it shouldn’t ever happen, as a matter of your health and our working framework.

If you have billed over 44 hours for over three weeks in a row, you should speak to the CEO immediately to ensure you are in compliance with our maximum average weekly hourly work week of 44 hours. You shouldn’t be doing this, and we should be re-thinking some things.

If authorized and approved by the CEO, any hours worked in excess of 44 hours in any week will be paid at a rate of 1.5 times the regular rate for all non-exempt Frogs. A (non-exempt) Frog who works beyond forty-four (44) hours in a work week without prior authorization obtained in advance, is in violation of our policies, so they will be paid and then asked to come speak to the CEO.

• Bounties do not qualify for overtime pay, as they are all by choice and have their own payment terms attached.
• Ninja Projects do not qualify for overtime pay, as they are all by choice and have their own payment terms attached.

Additional Clarifications on Overtime Calculations

Many Frogs are Exempt, anyway - Many people at Treefrog do not qualify for overtime anyway under ESA regulations. You can check if you qualify for overtime hours here: Exempted Frogs. The rule of thumb is, if you are an IT Professional or perform managerial or supervisory functions on a regular basis, you are exempted. (The word “Manager” in your title is not relevant).

Not all Frogweb Hours are actually Paid Hours - Hours only count as “paid hours” if you are obligated to be there or do them. Voluntary components: team building days, client lunches, Pod training, most events, self-learning, Learn O’Clock and most administration time is all “by choice only”, and therefore does not count towards “overtime hours” (as proven by the very rare occurence of all Frogs attending most events without punitive measures being taken). As all other hours should be billable against a client, only billable hours count towards your “overtime calculations”.

This is a Salaried environment, not an Hourly one. It’s up to you to self-manage with common sense. - When you joined our frog pond, you accepted a position with the understanding that you would work a flexible 40 hour work week in exchange for a salary. We don’t dock your pay if you are short of your 40 hour obligations. This is consistent with the ideals of work-life balance at Treefrog - you can have a bad week, and we look after you - Treefrog can have a bad week, and you look after us.

If you wanna look back, let’s look back to the letter of the law. - Should you wish to receive overtime pay retroactively, Treefrog reserves the right to retroactively review all previous hours you have worked with the company and not pay you for hours you worked under 40 hours in a week you were short hours - including not paying you for hours you were not at Treefrog under working obligations that you may have tracked.

Working over 44 hours a week regularly? - If Frog counts you working more than 44 hours a week, it is likely a symptom of poor role fit, lack of experience, or emergency situation(s), rather than excessive amounts of work. As Treefrog allows most roles a significantly high degree of flexibility, it is expected that if you cannot do your job within the regular work week hours, you will make arrangements with Treefrog leadership to provide you with additional training for efficiency, support, or redefinition of your role to ensure you can complete your work in an appropriate work day.

If you Retroactively Tracked Time in Frogweb - As per your obligations for time tracking “while you worked” - retroactively adding hours you believe you remember you worked relies on your fading memory and mental perceptions, and not on a scientifically quantifiable methodology for knowing exactly when you were and were not working. If you choose to not track your time as per our time tracking policies through our simple Internet-based time tracking system, hours you “retroactively add” to Frogweb do not qualify for overtime calcuations.

If You Worked From Home - As we allow work from home under certain circumstances, and there is no scientifically quantifiable methodology for knowing exactly when you were and were not working (and were quickly changing laundry), work-from-home hours cannot be used as the basis by which to calculate overtime. If you choose to work from home, any hours you work from home are not used in overtime caculations.

If you have NOT been approved to work overtime due to a special project and/or a client demand and/or critical deadline AND you are not exempt from the overtime rule AND you have not counted non-obligatory time AND you have exceed 44 hours on average, then please go talk to the CEO immediately to review and get paid.

If FrogWeb shows you consistently breaking above 44 hours, you get the first conversation about your role and how to change/modify your role or efficiency to keep you from breaking down. Together, we will figure out how to fix it. Obviously, if you aren’t tracking moment-to-moment in Frogweb, we can’t catch this, so we can’t help you. Track your time properly!

YOU are obligated to make sure your hours are under control, not anyone else. If you feel you are being inappropriately obligated to work overtime, please speak to the CEO at once.

Over 44 Approved Billable Hours Exceptions

However, you can work out an arrangement with the CEO in advance to do more than 44 hours of work in a week for a specific purpose for a specific number of weeks in order to achieve a specific purpose under unbelievably extraordinary circumstances - usually related to severe resource limitations in your Pod. First, projects you work on will be reviewed for overall efficiency to ensure this expenditure makes financial sense (otherwise, we’ll just fire or disappoint a client). Approved overtime hours will be paid at a rate of 1.5 times hourly rate, as determined by your salary divided by your total billable hours in a year.

Under these circumstances, expectations should be clear: you should only be working overtime for short periods, lest you unbalance yourself. Manage it carefully, and communicate regularly!

Rationale

The whole discussion above is pretty stupid and for most people, at most times, is somewhat redundant. At the end of the day, all of this is: “I have a job” rhetoric, not, “glorious success and happiness for all involved on the team through the mutual sharing of energy when we have it” rhetoric. The fact is we all go through periods of energy and burnout. We all have weeks we need to take it easy and weeks we are passionately engaged to achieve more. We should be cognizant of these ebbs and flows of one another’s energy as a team.

(ESA Overtime Guidelines for more details)