[RANT]
There are two primary reasons why people work overtime.
1) For the cash; and
2) To provide a service to industry and not leave their colleagues battling alone.
You will never remove the first motivator, such is life. There should be little need for or no need for option two; certainly less need than there is.
The staffing crisis is very much real. The reliance on Overtime is extraordinary. This was overtime reliance was primarily motivated by economic rationalisation. They way the company runs their budget/finance it is cheaper to pay 60% extra shifts in overtime than employ an extra FTE.
If your staffing number calls for 23.6 people much cheaper to cover the .6 on OT than pay for the extra 1.0; because of 'on costs'.
This has become systemic and part of the management ethos, particularly at high levels. They have then chipped away at other staff resource costs such as training specialists, support roles, college instructors, etc. CBT has replaced real training, turning what little time available for training into mostly a box ticking exercise; significant amounts of this CBT is done during breaks from the console, not on rostered training days.
There is no capacity to cover long term sick leave, release people for Leave without pay, or approve long service leave, or cover people leaving to get away from the man; and still the corporate spin turns the argument into a total desire for extra money as the only motivator and 'deliberate' action to 1) Create overtime (sick-out) and 2) Deliberately not cover sick-leave (to strengthen industrial position). Hello, hello, why does it need strengthening?
There is one group in the whole company that has 'correct' staffing and that group is working very little OT, and having airspace closures, hence giving them the evidence to support their assertion that it's a campaign. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Since getting to Ireland (I'm a deserter), a move certainly not done for cash... I have noticed a completely different attitude toward staffing levels and overtime.
The Irish by Australian standards are flush with staff; some of them have worked up to 19 extra days (which is a lot) for the entire year, most Irish ATCs have worked 3 or 4 shifts; yet they are still working on getting an extra 50 ATCs (already rated) on top of their abinitio program. The Irish work 'true' team rosters which are certainly not very efficient (compared to home) but the advantages are they never reduce capacity because of staffing, they have very little reliance on overtime and I'm sure their sick leave stats are much more "healthy" than at home, they run TRUCE (IFER) training days plus proficiency training too which includes training in the simulators and classroom; certainly not box ticking in front of a computer.
Compare that with home where the desire is to trim the rosters with fancy rostering tools and silly projects to reduce numbers despite all evidence suggesting the project(s) would be more staff intensive; ever with the desire from above to reduce budgets against the ledger thus assisting the payment of bonuses to upper management.
The reliance on overtime has grown where some staff are working in excess of one overtime shift per week, that's right over 50 extra days a year; I'd hate to think about how they run their family/social lives.
The lip service paid to the 'overseas recruiting campaign' was a classic joke of epic proportions, such is the work environment that all but the Sth Africans want to return home and will be doing so when their 'Australian to do list' is complete; this will exacerbate the staffing crisis.
And don't get me started on the box ticking that is 'safety assessments'.
[/RANT]
PS agree Baileys, wake up people, you obligations to industry and colleagues are complete by working your rostered duty, above that is above your obligation and is a nice to do not a must do, excluding motivator point one above...