Before it is crossed
Finding the person approaching a ceiling while a different shift is still an option.
Telling Somebody Before They Cross
A breach found afterwards is a record-keeping event. The same breach found a fortnight earlier is a rota decision, and the difference is one report.
The Report That Should Exist
One report, eight columns, refreshed weekly. Specifying it takes an hour and most organisations have never written the specification down.
Who Is Told, and Who Is Not
A list of people near a working time limit is operational information for two or three people and a reputational document for everybody else.
The Right to Decline
Most handbooks say overtime is voluntary. The test of whether that is true is whether anybody has declined recently and what happened to them.
Reading the Pattern Behind the Person
The same names appear at the top of the report quarter after quarter, and what they have in common is never a characteristic of those people.
When It Has Already Been Crossed
The hours were worked and cannot be unworked. What happens in the next week determines whether this is an incident with a record or something considerably worse.
Putting the Figure in the Rota Tool
The whole of this section reduces to one integration: the number has to be visible at the moment somebody assigns a shift, or none of it changes anything.