Overtime

HR in NY · June 2002

HR does the payroll in my company. We are paid weekly. Every week I give each Manager a print-out of their employees punch in and punch out times for the week before. They hand it back in to me and that is what I base the payroll on. Some Managers tell me to subtract some of the overtime for their employees. Their reasoning is they just get here early (not authorized) and punch in before they are suppose to so they shouldn't be paid. I don't think this is right. I believe an employee should be paid for their actual time shown by when they punched in and out. If we were ever audited I believe there might be a problem. We are half Union and half non-union. With the Union employees its absolutely what is on their print-out is what they get paid for. I think it should be that way for the non-union employees as well. Can anyone help me out here? If I have other people sharing my opinion I may get someone to listen to me. Thanks.

Catherine · June 2002

FLSA applies to time an employee is "suffered or permitted" to work. If the employees are actually working or performing preliminary tasks necessary to the job, they should be paid for the time.

jules2001 · June 2002

What is your policy regarding early punches? Perhaps the supervisors that want you to change the time should be managing their employees to properly use the timeclock? You have to pay employees for all of the time that they have worked.

Lori B · June 2002

Hi

If you are ever audited, you will lose this one. If ees are punched in, you can bet the DOL will assume they are working unless you can prove they weren't. Implement a policy pronto that does not allow someone to punch in more than 10 minutes before their shift.

Notwithstanding the wage and hour issues, you have others. Your work comp carrier will hate you if someone is injured while on the clock but supposedly "not working," etc.

good luck

moneyman · June 2002

We have had some problems with this too. Our problem is that the employees actually do not expect to be paid when they arrive early, and don't understand that it is not good (from the employer's legal standpoint) for them to begin early. We have to impress upon them that we are obligated to pay them if they are working, they cannot choose to not get paid.

They employees think it is a little silly to be subject to disciplinary action for clocking in early, they think of themselves as conscientious employees. However, in order to stay out of trouble, we enforce our work time guidelines and that means that anyone working any time other than their regular schedule, without supervisor prior approval, can be subject to disciplinary action. The policy was mainly written to avoid excess overtime, however, it works in this situation too. We encourage those that must arrive early to grab their coffee and go sit in the breakroom and not their desk until no more than 5 minutes before start time.

Overtime

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