Where the extra hours come from
IT overtime is rarely a daily habit; it clusters around events. Releases go live at night or at weekends to avoid the client's business hours. Severity 1 incidents keep engineers on a bridge call past midnight. A cutover week can mean working Indian days and US evenings back to back. Tracking it matters for two reasons: people who are paid or compensated for it expect accuracy, and repeated long weeks are an early sign that a project is understaffed.
- Weekend production deployments and cutovers
- Incident bridges that run past shift end
- UAT support on US hours during release week
- Data migration windows on public holidays
Overtime rules and the legal rate
Under the OSH Code, ordinary work is capped at eight hours a day, and work beyond the prescribed hours is overtime, paid at twice the ordinary wage rate with the worker's consent. Check which of your roles are covered, then write the policy so it is plain who is paid, who gets comp-off and how extra hours are approved. The working hours and overtime rules page explains the limits. In ZeniaHR, set every pay multiplier, for working days, weekly offs and holidays, at 2 or higher.
Worked example: a Saturday deployment
Arjun is a DevOps engineer in Hyderabad with a monthly gross of ₹62,400. If his gross day rate is worked out on a 26-day basis, it is ₹2,400, and his hourly rate is ₹2,400 divided by 8, which is ₹300. He works 6 hours 10 minutes on Saturday, his weekly off, for a production release. ZeniaHR rounds down to 15-minute blocks, so 6 hours count. At a weekly off multiplier of 2, the overtime is ₹300 x 6 x 2 = ₹3,600. If the policy pays in comp-off instead, 6 hours earns half a day, because a full day needs 8 hours.
Approvals and the monthly cap
ZeniaHR detects overtime every night from the punches, counting only time beyond full-day hours or after shift end, with a 30-minute minimum. The project manager approves in My Team and HR approves next, and HR can bulk approve after a release weekend. A monthly cap stops one person from quietly carrying a whole project. If the same names reach the cap three months running, treat it as a staffing question for the delivery head, not an overtime question for HR.
How to set it up in ZeniaHR
- Switch on the overtime policy and choose whether it counts beyond full-day hours or after shift end.
- Keep the 30-minute minimum and 15-minute rounding, and set multipliers for working days, weekly offs and holidays at 2 or more.
- Choose the payout: comp-off for engineers, pay for support roles, or the employee's choice where your policy allows it.
- Require approval so the project manager confirms each overtime entry before HR approves it.
- Set a monthly cap on overtime hours per person, and after each release month look at who reached it.
Read more about overtime in ZeniaHR.
Roles this applies to
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Do IT companies pay overtime in India?
Practices differ: some pay, some give comp-off, and some use both for different roles. Where the OSH Code's overtime rule applies, work beyond the prescribed hours must be paid at twice the ordinary wage rate, with the worker's consent. Write down which roles are paid, which get comp-off and how extra hours are approved, so engineers know before the release weekend.
How is overtime calculated for a salaried software engineer?
Divide the gross day rate by 8 to get an hourly rate, then multiply by the overtime hours and the multiplier. For a ₹2,400 day rate the hourly rate is ₹300, so 4 hours at 2x come to ₹2,400. ZeniaHR applies this formula to approved overtime and adds the amount to the month's payroll as an earning.
Is comp-off better than overtime pay for IT teams?
It depends on the role and how often the extra hours come. Comp-off gives rest back after a deployment weekend and costs no cash, but it only works if people can take it before it expires. Paid overtime suits support and junior roles where extra hours are frequent. In ZeniaHR the overtime policy can pay, give comp-off or let the employee choose.