Hourly Employee

JF12

I have an hourly employee who comes into work at 7:30 a.m. everyday instead of 8:30 because of personal issues. Our normal workday starts at 8:30. Can I have this employee in the office not punched in until 8:30 even though she has been instructed not to do anything work related? I have noticed her working in the last week. I was under the assumption that hourly employees must be punched in if on employer premesis? Thank you for any advice.

Don D

There is no requirement that they be punched in if they are on the premises. They should never be allowed to punch in except in accordance with your policy, and only then if they have or are about to begin work. You are doing her/him a favor by allowing him/her to hang in the work area before time to start work. Tell him to neither punch in nor begin work until 8:28.

Gillian3

Your obligation is to pay for time worked, including time not punched in if that is happening. You can tell her not to punch in until normal starting time and not to work until that time arrives. Being on the premises isn't a determination of anything. You could have her wait in the lunch room until work time or something like that.

JF12

Thanks

pork1

JF12: I agree with both of the above; however, I have learned through personal experience, that no matter how much we love and care about the individual and know that they would not do us harm by just hanging around and doing nothing is a bunch of "jibberish".

Somewhere in the past of these threads, you will find my true story which is way to long to repeat, therefore, you get the summary.

Store Manager has a sister, who also works for the company and car pools with the sister to the store, enters the building and does no work that was ever reported for 12 years. Then guess what, the Store Manager and the sister employee have a family falling out, which leads to the sister employee getting terminated.

At a wage and hour audit called for "no reason", but to check our handling of time and rules of work, guess what: the payroll records of the disgruntled x-employee/sister were called for out of a random list of stores.

The findings of the investigation helped us to understand" when the company says we do not pay for time worked unless you are allowed to do work and our payroll records are backed by mountains of time sheets and time cards to prove that one was paid for all hours worked, it also proves that an employee was on the premises and then her statement and calendar with additional hours worked that the sister would not submit, became valid because we had no record, otherwise.

The sister was allowed to come to work as a passenger, and when the store manager entered the building the sister was allowed to come in and wait for her majic hour to come to punch or write in. The auditor nailed the company by asking simple questions like: did your sister ever answer the telephone, when she was just "hanging around", did she ever help a customer when she was just "hanging around", did she ever straighten the merchandise, or clean-up after a customer spilled anything, did she ever wash a window or empty an ash tray or take out the garbage, while she was just "hanging around", etc. The store manager had to admit that she had seen her sister doing these little mundane task, or lie to the auditor under oath! The company paid dearly for this little opportunity to become educated to the fact that the x-employee always has better records than the company, because we never knew we needed to keep these unlawful opportunites to be held liable for "wrong doing" while just "hanging around"! The x-employee records were held as valid, because we had nothing to present in counter to the testimony of the manager and the x-employee sister and other interviewed employees. Because, the company has no defense, the allogations of allowing someone to work off of the clock was found and every employee in the store part-time and full time, who had maintained that the company in the form of the store manager allowed everyone to come in and do work; we could not prove, otherwise. Our policy and procedures stated we did not do this, but the facts developed by the auditor said we did not follow our policy and procedures.

Bottom line: if you can not control the situation do not put it down in written format, unless you intend to follow it up with action. Don't be the next company found to be giving x-employees the bullets to shoot your policy and procedures down. It hurts in the $ollars and cents arena.

The x-employee was re-instated and transferred to a different store based on the recommendation of the auditor. The company had to terminate the store manager sister! This did not work out well for anyone but the x-employee and employees, each accepting the gift provided by the dis-gruntled employee!
PORK