5. Pay them with overtime or comp time. I'd suspect that this works best if it's the workers choice. At the same job, depending on circumstance, I was paid off

5. Pay them with overtime or comp time. I'd suspect that this works best if it's the workers choice. At the same job, depending on circumstance, I was paid off with both comp time and overtime, and its surprising how different I felt the experiences were. I definitely liked having the time off, but I generally squandered it since I was still decompressing from the extra work (I should note that, in this job, comp time generally came from working through the night - literally midnight to afternoon - on a Friday night leading into a week on call, then followed by the comp time). During a crunch time on another project, 60+ hour weeks weren't particularly rare, but we were paid overtime (at our regular rate). I definitely preferred the paycheque over the time off, unless I could quickly bank enough time to take a full week off. I think the choice comes down to your personal situation. Younger, single folks - like I was then - are probably much more likely to want to work through the pain in exchange for "extra" cash. Married folks, particularly those with kids, are probably much more inclined to take the time off to be with their loved ones. It's very much a personal choice, and I think an employer that understands that and treats the situation accordingly will get a lot more loyalty and respect from their workers than would an employer who paints everyone with the same broad stroke. That said, I seem to recall reading - in Peopleware, I believe - that workers who push past 40 hours a week need the time to compensate, and I believe that they need to have more time than they worked to recover. I'd have to read the book again to be sure though.