Pay for time in class?

Ki

We have a class of employees that (per a grant regulation) must have a specific certification by the year 2011. We are willing to pay their tuition to take the necessary classes to meet the requirements to take the certification exam. Do we also have to pay them their wages for their time spent in class? The classes will not be during their regular working hours.

NeedCoffee

Not sure on this one. I know for us, since we require certain training, we pay for that training. In this case, it seems a grant requires the training - i'm not sure how far this falls into the employers' responsibility. Sorry I couldn't help!

HRinVA

I presume you are talking about non-exempts. If you require them to take the training, then it is probably compensable time. You can find more info at [url]www.dol.gov[/url].

FunHRBanker

I agree with HR in VA. If you are requiring them to take the training, you must pay them for it.

Dutch2

Same here. If we require the ee to take the training, we pay them for their time.

Ki

This article is what made me question it.

[url]http://www.hr.com/servlets/sfs?&t=/Default/gateway&i=1116423256281&b=1116423256281&application=story&active=no&ParentID=1119278164443&StoryID=1119649774875&xref=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=training+time+required+pay[/url]

We just need our employees to have the certification. But if they didn't take enough related credits in college, they can't sit for the exam. I guess it just seems unfair to me that an employee who did everything they needed to do in college gets nothing, and the employee who didn't take the right credits in college is going to get paid to go to class.

This article made it sound like maybe we don't have to pay for the time in class because we aren't requiring they take the class, we are just requiring the certification.

I'm meeting with an HR consultant today on another issue, so I'll ask him what he thinks and post his response.

Ki

We've decided to make the employee exempt, so now we don't have to worry about for paying them for time spent in class. The HR consultant never ended up giving me an answer to my question; I think maybe he wasn't sure.

Thanks for you feedback.

FunHRBanker

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-16-07 AT 12:21PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Ki-
Does the employee qualify as exempt as defined under FLSA?

Ki

Yes. We determined they are exempt under the "learned professional" classification. They are teachers with 4 year degrees.