How can you reduce this risk without demotivating this excellent employee you have?

when you have employees work under you in shifts it means the strategy of the company work requires that order of shifts style, so giving bonuses don't really reduces the risk of more money lose to a company or increasing the salary by promotion, it will only add on more financial risks, being a manager with employees work in shift doesn't only deals with management side, but you must have the analytical thinking and decision making skills.
this question is one of my questions that i use in interviewing in order to select the best man to fill a certain job no matter how small can be the task, you don't need management background or years of experiences to solve it immediately, this question is not only a mind teaser, but it shows you who you can be in future and who you are, especially if you are already a manager this will show you how good you are in your job, and there is no sham of not knowing the answer, this will only show the need of development.
in advice think of a normal company, each company do their budget yearly bases per department, this includes the salaries and bonuses systems and any extra payment needed, how would you do to reduce this risk this employee burden the company with his overtime without demotivating him since he is an excellent employee and he does bring in revenue to the company? am really interested to know your answers, but you need to think out side the box :D

It sounds like you don't have a financial risk, but a liquidity or capital issue? Do you have enough money to pay your employee? What is the affect on other employees if they find out that someone in the same team is earning more money? You have to ask yourself the question, do you have a person problem or a position problem.
If you were to promote the individual just to give them more pay it does not always mean that they will be equally qualified / efficient or effective in a different role.
I truly believe that we should focus on peoples strengths and not their weaknesses.
By promoting someone you may be making a mistake because the individual is weaker in the promoted role.
My advice is to leave them where they're most productive, in a role that they truly enjoy and pay them what they're worth is to the organisation.
Of course, if you can't afford to pay them then take a hard look at your cost to income ratios and see if the organisation is as efficient as it could be.

If the overtime system is being mis-used by employees, then you would have a problem of over-paying employees. What I understood from your info is that the employee does his job in a good way and deserves some extra money when compared to other employees. I therefore suggest that you stop the overtime system. This would be easy since you have the shift system (i.e8 hour each shift with at least2 shifts for example). Additional working hours should not be allowed as other employees would be stamping in their next shift. Paying extra money to motivate employees could be performed only when they exceed expectations... this could be in terms of paying a bonus, ticket or non-cash incentives.

Hope this helps.

It really depends on the context and more importantly on the person you are addressing this to.
Because if you address the wrong issue, company will not only loose but will also end up demotivating the employee.
For example, if a person is more status conscious or needs social approval, increasing his salary will only solve the situation temporarily.
same with the incentive-oriented employees.
The best way probably is to give a mix of both if possible i.e.
a small increment and small promotion - materially insignificant to the company (thus reducing its risks) but keeping the employee engaged and happy.

Stop the system of Overtime.
and Start paying Bonus for achieving the Targets and give the Employee good Career opportunities

Promote the staff or increase his salary

As per my understanding he / she requires more training and to familiarized about work ethic and the cost of time for all projects. If the project/ task is really time consuming then overtime to be paid otherwise train employee to give out put in given time line.

i have an idea about it and i hope all employers apply it in th concept of OVERTIME , many of us try to gain more by staying after time work by saying i have a lot of work needed to be done , YOU can control that by making excel sheet by the time working hours in your company even it include the break time and let the employe mention how he / she spend the day work time , Also for the time after work ?? he / she must say what is it ? not only that BUT why he / she didn't finish it during the normal working days hours??? by the above you will discover who works and who playing around , by sequence the top management will know as well and they will try to announce that by a way or other through a mail all over the company about that person , OR i have another idea making a title by EMPLOYE OF THE MONTH which at least will adde value to him / her in your company or in the other company in the Future will add value when he / she applying in it .

Ms. Buthina, you had mentioned that employee is being working in shift which mean after around8 hours of duty he must be replaced by other shift employee and based on24 hours of production or duty there are3 shift employee so how could he is being paid overtime?

There must be another employee who is being used for as a support and he could be used to provide rest or off day(shift) for those3 employees. The simple solution is to hire the appropriate person and train in this cycle rather than paying overtime to that star performer.