What this is
What is an overtime authorisation?
What is an overtime authorisation?
It is the record that approves a named person working beyond their planned shift on a stated date, together with the reason, the hours requested, and where that leaves them against weekly hours, consecutive days and rest between shifts. It also records what alternative was considered instead. It is a fatigue control and a working time record, not a payroll instruction, although payroll usually consumes it.
Why does overtime need authorising at all if the person is willing?
Because consent does not remove the duty. Fatigue is a hazard arising from how work is organised, and the employer holds the duty to manage it whether or not the worker wants the hours, which they usually do. The person asking for the shift has an incentive not to mention the four days they have already worked, and the approval is the only point in the process where somebody with a wider view is obliged to look.
What is the HSE fatigue and risk index?
A tool that scores a shift pattern for the fatigue it is likely to produce and the relative risk of an incident within it, taking account of shift length, timing, rest between duties, cumulative sequence and the nature of the work. It scores patterns rather than individual approvals, which is why an overtime record that captures consecutive days and weekly hours can be fed into it and one that captures only tonight's hours cannot.
Scope
When is an overtime authorisation required?
This record covers one person, one date and the hours beyond their plan. It is not the roster, not the fatigue assessment of the pattern, and not the resourcing decision, all of which have their own instruments in the shift management programme.
Use this template when
- A named person is being asked to work beyond their planned shift on a specific date
- Cover is needed for absence, a breakdown, a late order or a changeover that has overrun
- Hours are being extended into a night, or into a rest day, for someone whose pattern already assumed neither
- Safety critical work is being extended and somebody senior must accept the fatigue position deliberately
- A pattern of extended hours is building for an individual and each approval needs to be visible to the next approver
Do not use it for
- Setting who works where for the shift, which is the Manning and Labour Plan and is where a cover gap should first appear
- Assessing whether the individual is currently fit to work extended hours, which is the Shift Fatigue Screening and asks about sleep rather than hours
- Passing the state of the operation between crews, which is the Operations Shift Handover and is not made adequate by keeping the outgoing person longer
- Confirming a person is signed off for the position they are covering, which is the Competency Matrix and is the check most often skipped when overtime fills a gap
- Recording escalation of the underlying operational problem, which is the Escalation and Andon Log rather than a comment on an overtime form
Compliance mapping
Which HSE fatigue index requirements does this satisfy?
Two separate regimes meet on this record. Working time law sets hard limits on hours and rest with a reference period and an enforcement trail, while health and safety law treats fatigue as a hazard to be assessed and controlled regardless of whether the limits are met. Compliance with the first is not a defence under the second.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.4 | Weekly working time not to exceed 48 hours averaged over the reference period, unless the worker has agreed to opt out | Header |
| Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.10 | Eleven consecutive hours daily rest in each 24 hour period, with compensatory rest where interrupted | Fatigue position |
| Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.11 | Weekly rest of 24 uninterrupted hours, or 48 hours per fortnight, which consecutive working days consume | Fatigue position |
| Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.6 | Night workers' normal hours not to exceed eight in each 24 hour period averaged over the reference period | Fatigue position |
| ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2.1 | Hazard identification to cover how work is organised, including workload, working hours and other human factors | Fatigue position |
| ISO 45001 cl.8.1.2 | Risk reduced following the hierarchy of controls, so alternatives to extending hours are considered before the hours are accepted | Alternatives |
| Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.9 | Adequate records kept to show the weekly and night work limits have been complied with, retained for two years | Outcome |
| HSE HSG256 (Managing shift work) | Shift and overtime arrangements assessed for fatigue risk, with limits set and monitored rather than decided case by case | Outcome |
What it does not cover
- Working time records, which must show compliance across the whole reference period and cannot be assembled from approvals that only exist where somebody remembered to raise one.
- The fatigue risk assessment of the shift pattern, which assesses the roster as designed, including handover timing and rest between duties, rather than one night's extension.
- Individual fitness for the shift, which is the fatigue screening and asks about sleep obtained, commute and personal load, none of which appear in an hours calculation.
- Pay, premium and contractual entitlement, which belong in payroll and in the contract of employment, and which drive most requests but decide none of the safety question.
- The resourcing decision, which belongs in the manning plan and the establishment review, and which recurring authorisations should be forcing rather than quietly substituting for.
Global
Overtime Authorisation requirements by country
Hours limits are among the most jurisdictionally variable duties in this library. Some regimes cap hours directly, some cap them only for named safety critical roles, and some cap nothing but still hold the employer liable for a fatigue related incident.
Fair Labor Standards Act 29 U.S.C. 207; OSH Act Section 5(a)(1); 49 CFR 395; 10 CFR 26 subpart I
Federal law regulates overtime pay rather than hours worked for most adult employees, with prescriptive hours of service rules only in named sectors.
For a general manufacturing site there is no hours ceiling to breach, so the exposure is a General Duty Clause case built on a fatigue related incident and your own records.
Working Time Regulations 1998, regs 4, 6, 9, 10, 11; HSE HSG256
48 hour weekly average with an individual opt out, hard daily and weekly rest entitlements, and a duty to keep records showing the limits are met.
The rest provisions are the ones an overtime approval breaches on a specific date, and they are not covered by the opt out that most sites rely on.
Directive 2003/88/EC, arts 3, 5, 6, 8 and 16
Daily rest of 11 hours, weekly rest, a 48 hour weekly maximum including overtime, and limits on night work, with reference periods set nationally.
Several member states have not implemented the individual opt out, so overtime that averages above 48 hours is unlawful rather than merely poor practice.
Canada Labour Code Part III, Division I; provincial employment standards legislation
Standard and maximum weekly hours, a minimum rest period between shifts and break entitlements, with excess hours requiring consent and in places a permit.
Overtime above the maximum can require an authorisation outside the organisation entirely, which a same day verbal approval cannot produce retrospectively.
Fair Work Act 2009 s.62; model WHS Regulations; Safe Work Australia fatigue guidance
38 ordinary hours plus additional hours only where reasonable, with risk to health and safety expressly among the factors deciding reasonableness.
The reasonableness test imports the fatigue question into employment law, so a record showing the cumulative position was checked does double duty.
ILO Conventions C001 and C047; ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2.1
Long standing hours of work conventions alongside a management system duty to identify hazards arising from work organisation.
Certification auditors sample overtime records to test whether the fatigue hazard was assessed at all, and a form without cumulative fields answers no.
How to complete it
How to complete an overtime authorisation, step by step
Every field on this record can be completed in ninety seconds by the person who wants the hours approved, which is precisely the problem. Four judgement calls decide whether the record is a control or a formality.
Hours already this week and consecutive days worked are the only fields that make this record more than a note, and they are the two most likely to be wrong. The requester has an interest in a low number and often a genuine gap in memory, particularly where hours were worked at another site or through an agency. Populate them from the rota and clocking data, and treat a hand entered figure as unverified.
Adequate rest is a calculation with two timestamps: when the person stopped and when they are due back, including travel. Marginal is the honest answer far more often than it is given, and where the answer is No the approval should not be a manager's to make. Eleven hours is a floor, not a target, and it assumes the time off is available for sleep rather than for a commute and a family.
If the work could be covered by somebody else or deferred, then what is being approved is convenience, and the fatigue exposure is being bought with nothing in return. If neither is true, then the site has a resourcing gap and this record is evidence of it. Answer both honestly and the record starts telling you something at month end that no individual approval can.
Where the hours go ahead outside limits or outside comfort, someone above the requester has to accept that in their own name, with the conditions attached: a shortened shift, no safety critical tasks, a break pattern, a fatigue screening at start up. An acceptance with no conditions is not a risk decision, and the score on the form will read high while the exposure it describes is the worst one you approved that month.
What auditors find
Most common overtime authorisation findings
Overtime records are read twice: routinely by an auditor sampling working time compliance, and forensically after an incident on an extended shift. The second reading is the one they are rarely written for.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Authorisation created after the hours were worked, alongside the timesheet reconciliation. | HSE HSG256 | Require the record before the shift; treat retrospective records as an exception with a named reason. |
| Cumulative hours and consecutive days left blank or entered as zero across a sample. | Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.4 | Populate both from the rota and time system so the approver sees a figure they did not supply. |
| Approved hours reduce rest between shifts below eleven consecutive hours with no compensatory rest. | Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.10 | Block the approval at that threshold and escalate; record the compensatory rest given if it proceeds. |
| Night worker averaging above eight hours per 24 across the reference period, unmonitored. | Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.6 | Track night hours separately and report the rolling average, not just the weekly total. |
| Requester and approver are the same person, or the approver is the shift's own supervisor every time. | ISO 45001 cl.5.3 | Require approval above the requester, and rotate nothing else about it. |
| Repeated authorisations for the same individual, none escalated as a pattern. | ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2.1 | Report authorisations per person per rolling month and escalate above a set count automatically. |
| Safety critical work extended with no fatigue screening and no conditions attached. | ISO 45001 cl.8.1.2 | Link a fatigue screening to any safety critical extension and record the conditions of approval. |
| Hours actually worked exceed hours requested, with no second approval. | Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.9 | Close the record against actual hours and flag variances above a threshold for review. |
| Overtime used to cover a position the person is not signed off for. | ISO 45001 cl.7.2 | Check the competency matrix as part of the approval, not after the shift starts. |
| Working time records cannot be produced for the reference period because approvals are incomplete. | Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.9 | Reconcile authorisations against paid overtime monthly and investigate any hours with no record. |
Case in point
Case in point: the vacancy that was covered for five months
A chilled foods site lost an experienced wrapping machine operator in February and held the vacancy open while a recruitment freeze ran its course. The gap was covered from within: one operator in particular knew the machine, wanted the money, and was reliable. Overtime was agreed verbally at handover and entered into the system at the end of each week by the pay clerk, who had no view of anything except hours to be paid. Every individual approval was made by whichever shift manager was on, and none of them saw the previous one.
At 02:40 on a Saturday, on hour eleven of a twelve hour shift and the sixth consecutive day, the operator reached into the wrapper to clear a film jam without isolating it and lost the tip of a finger. The immediate cause was a bypassed guarding routine she had used before and knew was wrong. The investigation pulled her hours: 61, 58, 64 and 59 in the four weeks preceding, all within the 48 hour average because she had signed an opt out in 2019, and rest between shifts had been under eleven hours on nine occasions. Six overtime records existed for the month, all created retrospectively, all with the cumulative fields blank. Run against the fatigue and risk index afterwards, the pattern scored in the range the site's own policy said required senior sign off.
The finding was not that anyone approved something obviously unsafe. It was that the site had converted a resourcing decision into a fatigue exposure and left no point in the process where the conversion was visible. The vacancy was the root cause and the retrospective records were what let it run for five months. The corrective action was to raise every authorisation before the shift with the cumulative position pre populated, and to escalate any individual crossing four authorisations in a rolling month as a resourcing item rather than an hours item.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
4 sections
- Reference
- OPS-004
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- OT-2026-000
- Scoring
- Overtime within limits
- Direction
- High is good
- Singleton
- Yes
- Basis
- HSE fatigue index
- Links
- Links Manning Plan and Fatigue Screening
- Tags
- Shift, Fatigue, Hours
- Sections
- 4
- Fields
- 47
- Follow up fields
- 3
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 4
Header
16 fieldsRecord ID*
Auto sequence. Format OT-2026-000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Completed By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Worker*
Person ID
Links to FDN-003 Person ID
Reason For Overtime*
Hours Requested*
Date Worked*
Requested In Advance*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Hours Already This Week*
Consecutive Days Worked*
Within Policy Limits*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Hour Thirteen, Approved By Somebody Who Cannot See Day Four
Fatigue builds across a week. The manager approving tonight rarely knows what this person worked on Monday, and the person asking has a reason not to mention it.
Fatigue position
6 fieldsRest Between Shifts Adequate*
- Yes3 pts
- Marginal1 pt
- No0 pts
Consecutive Days Within Limits*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Weekly Hours Within Limits*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Night Work Involved*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Safety Critical Work Involved*
- Yes0 pts
- No2 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Worker Asked Rather Than Told*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Alternatives
6 fieldsCould Be Covered By Somebody Else*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Could Be Deferred*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Recurring Rather Than Exceptional*
- Yes0 pts
- No2 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Underlying Resourcing Gap*
- Yes0 pts
- No2 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Approved Above The Requester*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Recorded Before The Hours Were Worked*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Outcome
19 fieldsApproved*
- Yes3 pts
- With conditions2 pts
- No0 pts
Approved By
Hours Actually Worked
Fatigue Risk Accepted Deliberately*
- Yes0 pts
- No2 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Fatigue Screening ID
Links to ERG-024 Screening ID
Pattern Escalated To Management*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
- N/Aexcluded from denominator
Items Assessed*
Excludes anything marked N/A.
Items Failed*
Score Percent*
Calculated on submission. High is good. N/A items leave the denominator.
Result Band*
- Pass3 pts
- Caution1 pt
- Fail0 pts
Completeness Percent*
How much of the template was actually answered. A high score on a half completed form is not a high score.
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Manager*
Signature*
HR*
Second Signature*
OPS-004 · record IDs look like OT-2026-000 · Links Manning Plan and Fatigue Screening
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The form is trivial. What fails around it is the visibility: the previous four approvals nobody surfaced, the cumulative figure nobody verified, the escalation nobody owned, and the record created a week late by somebody reconciling pay.
Holds authorisations against the manning plan and the rota, pre populates the cumulative position, and shows the approver the individual's recent history before they sign.
Raises a fatigue screening where an extension crosses into night work, safety critical work or a sixth consecutive day, and holds the shift pattern assessment behind it.
Checks the competency matrix for the position being covered, so overtime cannot place someone on a machine they are not signed off for.
Counts authorisations per person over a rolling month, escalates the pattern as a resourcing item, and reconciles paid overtime against records that exist.
This template lives in KnowOps — frontline execution. Shift handover, production control, daily management, worker lifecycle and improvement.
Meet KnowOps→Glossary
Overtime Authorisation definitions and key terms
- Fatigue
- A decline in mental and physical performance from insufficient sleep, extended wakefulness, time of day or sustained workload, which impairs judgement and reaction before the person notices it.
- Reference period
- The rolling window over which average weekly working time is calculated, ordinarily 17 weeks in Great Britain, which is why a single extreme week can be lawful and still dangerous.
- Daily rest
- The uninterrupted rest between the end of one working period and the start of the next, set at eleven consecutive hours in each 24 hour period in Great Britain and the EU.
- Compensatory rest
- Equivalent rest given where a daily or weekly rest entitlement is legitimately interrupted, which must actually be taken rather than credited.
- Opt out
- An individual written agreement to exceed the 48 hour weekly average, which is personal, revocable, and has no effect on rest entitlements or on the fatigue duty.
- Night worker
- A worker who normally works a defined portion of their hours during night time, a status that carries an eight hour average limit and an entitlement to a health assessment.
- Fatigue and Risk Index
- An HSE derived tool that scores a shift pattern for likely fatigue and for relative risk, taking shift length, timing, rest and cumulative sequence into account.
- Consecutive days worked
- The unbroken run of shifts before this one, which drives cumulative fatigue independently of weekly hours and is the field most often left blank.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about overtime authorisation
Should the record be raised before or after the overtime is worked?+
Before, without exception worth defending. Raised before, it is an authorisation and a control, and the cumulative position can still change the answer. Raised afterwards it is a payroll note describing hours nobody could have declined, and it is the pattern an inspector uses to argue the fatigue duty was never engaged.
The worker has signed an opt out. Does the weekly position still matter?+
Yes. The opt out disapplies the 48 hour average and nothing else. Daily rest, weekly rest and night work limits stand, and the health and safety duty to manage fatigue is untouched by an agreement the worker signed. Sites that treat the opt out as a general waiver are the ones whose records show 60 hour weeks with nothing recorded against them.
Who should approve it?+
Someone above the person requesting the cover, and someone who can see the individual's recent history. Those are usually two different requirements and the second one is harder. A shift manager approving their own crew's hours will make locally sensible decisions indefinitely, because the information that would change the decision is on somebody else's shift.
How much overtime is too much?+
Set a limit and enforce it rather than judging case by case. Common defensible positions are twelve hours maximum on shift, no more than six consecutive days, eleven hours between shifts and a weekly ceiling below the legal average. The number matters less than the fact that it exists, because a site with no stated limit has no threshold at which anybody must escalate.
Does the record replace a fatigue assessment?+
No. This record assesses one extension against limits. The fatigue assessment covers the pattern: shift length, direction of rotation, start times, handover, commute and rest days. If overtime is routine, the pattern including the overtime is the real roster, and it should be assessed as such rather than approved a night at a time.
What do we do with the alternatives answers at month end?+
Count them. A month where most requests could have been covered by somebody else says the rota is misallocated; a month where most could not, and where most are marked recurring with an underlying resourcing gap, is a business case for a headcount. Those answers are the only part of the form that improves anything beyond the individual shift.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Shift Management
Shift Fatigue Screening
Screens work patterns for fatigue risk, covering shift length, rotation, breaks and consecutive days
Shift and Crew Register
Holds the shift pattern and crew structure for each area, so records can be grouped by the team that actually did the work
Operations Shift Handover
Passes the state of the operation from one shift to the next, covering what ran, what broke, what is held and what the next shift must know
Shift Start Up Check
Confirms the area, the people and the equipment are ready before the shift starts producing
Manning and Labour Plan
Sets who is working where for a shift, against the competencies each position requires
Shift Performance Log
Records what the shift actually achieved hour by hour against plan, and why it differed
More in Shift Management
Operations Shift Handover
Passes the state of the operation from one shift to the next, covering what ran, what broke, what is held and what the next shift must know
Shift Start Up Check
Confirms the area, the people and the equipment are ready before the shift starts producing
Manning and Labour Plan
Sets who is working where for a shift, against the competencies each position requires
Shift Performance Log
Records what the shift actually achieved hour by hour against plan, and why it differed
Escalation and Andon Log
Records a call for help from the floor, who responded, how long it took and what was done
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- Working Time Regulations 1998, regulations 4, 6, 9, 10 and 11 (GB)
- HSE HSG256 Managing shift work: health and safety guidance, and the HSE Fatigue and Risk Index tool
- Directive 2003/88/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time, articles 3, 5, 6, 8 and 16
- ISO 45001:2018 clauses 6.1.2.1, 8.1.2 and 7.2
- Fair Work Act 2009 section 62, maximum weekly hours (Australia), and Safe Work Australia guidance on managing fatigue
- Canada Labour Code Part III, Division I, hours of work and rest periods
- OSH Act Section 5(a)(1) General Duty Clause (US); 49 CFR Part 395 hours of service; 10 CFR Part 26 subpart I work hour controls
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.