Dear Meenakshi Gupta,
Would have been better had you mentioned the location of the restaurant. The question in the second part of your post is not clear as suggested by Dinesh - whether you want an alternative to the system of overtime work or simply an alternative mode of payment for overtime work. Whatever the type of clarification sought for, I am sure that you are fully aware of the concept of overtime work by employees and both the need for and the scale of compensation in this regard. Restriction of working hours to 8 hrs a day and 48 hrs a week is the first convention of ILO, If I remember correct. The amount of time the employee works at the instance of the employer beyond normal working hours is, therefore, called as " Over Time" in employment parlance. Apart from the Minimum Wages Act,1948, a monetary labour legislation, the Contract Labour ( Regulation & Abolition) Act,1970 and the Building and Other Construction Workers ( Regulation of Employment Service) Act,1996, labour legislations dealing with special type of indirect/ adhoc labour, Establishment-oriented labour legislations viz.,Factories Act,1948, Mines Act,1952, Working Journalists ( Conditions of Service) Miscll Provisions Act,1955, the States' Catering Establishments Acts etc, invariably provide for overtime work and the mode of compensation for it. Almost all these enactments except the Working Journalists Act prescribe only monetary compensation at twice the rate of normal wages; only rule10 of the Working Journalists Act prescribes compensatory rest hours equal to the overtime hours worked beyond 6 hrs in day shift and beyond 5 1/2 hrs in night shift. Genarally reduction in overtime work will result in more employment and more leisure to the existing labour at the end of normal workday. But exigencies of work can necessitate the adoption of overtimework. Hence there is justification for compensation @ twice the normal wages. Whatever the alternative mode of compensation like the one hesitantly suggested by Dinesh should not be in effect lesser than the statutorily prescribed compensation. Taking into consideration of practical factors peculiar to your restaurant like the types of menu, times of serving, restrictions on service time by Public Authorities like Police etc, you may decide the possiblity of shift working to minimize the incidence of overtime work.