Time Off in Lieu and Overtime Policy
| Owner |
Head of People |
| Last reviewed |
May 2026 |
| Next review |
May 2027 |
| Applies to |
Automata Technologies Ltd (UK), with country schedules for the United States and Germany |
1. Purpose
This policy sets out how Automata recognises and compensates working time outside of contracted hours. It is designed to:
- Protect employee health, wellbeing and rest in line with statutory working time requirements.
- Provide a fair, consistent and predictable mechanism for recognising additional hours.
- Make Time Off in Lieu (TOIL) the default form of recognition, with paid overtime reserved for exceptional circumstances.
- Ensure managers plan workloads in a way that minimises sustained additional hours.
Sustained or repeated reliance on additional hours signals a planning, capacity or resourcing issue. The relevant manager and Director should raise this with the People Team so it can be addressed structurally.
2. Scope
This policy applies to all employees of Automata Technologies Ltd in the United Kingdom. Country-specific schedules at the end of this policy apply to employees engaged through Automata Inc (United States) and Automata Technologies GmbH (Germany).
The policy does not apply to:
- Members of the senior leadership team (Director level and above), whose remuneration reflects the requirement for occasional additional hours.
- Contractors and consultants engaged under a services agreement, except where overtime has been agreed in writing in advance by the engaging manager and the People Team.
On-call and standby arrangements for engineering teams are governed by the separate On-Call Policy. Where there is any conflict between this policy and the On-Call Policy, the On-Call Policy takes precedence for in-scope individuals during their on-call rotations.
3. Definitions
- Additional hours: working time worked at the request of, or with the agreement of, the line manager that falls outside an employee’s contractual working hours.
- TOIL (Time Off in Lieu): paid time away from work granted in recognition of additional hours worked, accrued hour-for-hour.
- Overtime: paid additional hours at a premium rate of 1.5 times the employee’s standard hourly rate, available only by exception.
- Reactive: additional hours that were not pre-planned, where TOIL is allocated after the event.