Straight time refers to the standard working hours or the number of working hours that has been established for a particular job.
Employees who work more than straight time are paid premium pay for overtime, either voluntarily by the employer or required by law.
For example, if the normal working hours for a company is 9am to 6pm, then a staff member working till after office hours of 8pm would mean that the hours worked from 6pm to 8pm is beyond straight time, and therefore overtime.
Different types of jobs in different industries and business natures can have very different types of required working hours.
So depending on the job requirements for a particular position, methods of determining straight time can vary.
For example, some of which might be structured as:
- Number of hours per day
- Number of hours per week
- Special requirements for those who work 12-hour shifts
- etc
It must be noted that not all job positions come with straight time that enables them to claim overtime pay when working extended hours outside the normal hours.
Managers and executives for example, are usually not remunerated this way.
They work whatever amount of hours necessary to achieve their job objectives. And if they perform well, they get good appraisals and get rewarded with annual bonuses.
This essentially means that higher level personnel usually don’t work on a straight time basis.
