Company Sponsored Event
Redbudpt
55 Posts
If our company is sponsoring a local event and asks for volunteers to work the company booth would we be required to pay them overtime or for time that they worked outside work hours such as nights & weekends etc.?
Situation: Several of our employees have volunteered to work our company booth for a local festival on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Some of the employees will be starting their shifts during their their normal work hours and finishing a couple of hours after their normal work hours and others will be picking up that shift and working later into the evening, not to mention the weekend volunteers.
We are unsure how to handle pay in this situation. As of right now the company wants to pay for the time worked during normal work hours since it was a voluntary event.
Comments
It's difficult to have employees volunteer on behalf of the Company and pass the smile test under FLSA.
Are they doing charity work under the banner of the Company or, in working the booth, are they promoting the interests of the Company itself?
I agree with TXHRGuy. In your original post you put "volunteer TO WORK". Unless this is a charity event and the time is truly voluntary (i.e. the employees who work it get no favors and those that do not are not punished in any way), I would be careful about not paying them.
Also is the volunteering the same type of work the employee normally does? "On September 16, 2005, the DOL addressed the application of the FLSA to employees who volunteer their time at an annual race hosted by their employer, a non-profit university. The DOL stated that the volunteers must be compensated for any time spent volunteering during their normal working hours and must be compensated for any time spent performing work that is similar to their normal duties, even if those activities occur during non-working hours. However, no compensation is required when the volunteer activities occur after regular working hours and are not similar to the employees’ normal duties."
Here's a more detailed article on this situation: http://www.ballardspahr.com/press/article.asp?ID=1315