over 8 or over 40

Evergreen · October 2002

In my state (Washington) the law is work over 40 hours is considered overtime to non-exempt. We are a new company with some new non-ee's that work a lot of extra time and they are concerned about 1 day holidays that becomes a penalty rather than a benefit when they have to work some extra during the week. Is this just the way it is...or should I try to accomodate them in some way that is legal.

Evergreen

Cxjo · October 2002

You can always do something that is more generous than the law; i.e. you could, as an organization, choose to include holiday pay in the OT calculations for the week. (Depending on the size of your company this could be a very expensive proposition).

The other side of the coin is there is nothing that says you have to provide holiday pay (or holidays OFF for that matter), so they ARE getting a benefit provided by the company (the holiday pay for a day off). Perhaps a little reminder of that will end or at least subdue the complaining.

Whatever · October 2002

You can always be more generous than the law. MY experience has shown that when you include the 8 hours of holiday pay within the 40 hrs/week, the employees are more likely to work longer days. They get the money and the company gets the production.

wiremanufacturer · October 2002

I have to agree with this. At my company we only pay overtime to ee who WROK over 40 hrs in a week. This means that Holiday pay is not included in the 40 hrs. We have found that when the holiday occurs on say a Monday and we ask ee to work on Friday (They work 4 10's Mon-Thurs) then I don't have many show up because they won't get ot for that day.

Lori B · October 2002

We also include the holiday pay as time worked toward the 40 for the week. It is a perk and we remind the ees of that continuously to prevent the entitlement mindset from setting in.

arodriguez · October 2002

On holiday weeks, we pay based on the number of hours during that week. For instance, if a holiday (paid or unpaid) falls on Friday, we calculate the "available time" (32 hours) and pay overtime for anything worked over 32 hours.

We were working under an over 8/over 40 policy, however, are changing our shifts to 4/10's so we will be changing policy to anything over 40 only. The policy will still apply that anything over the "available" time will be overtime.

A. Rodriguez
Human Resource Manager

SandiF · November 2002

I'm in Washington too. We count holidays as hours worked, but do not count vacation or sick hours when calculationg OT. The thought is that on a holiday, it is the company's choice to close and the employee doesn't have the opportunity to work. I'm not sure our employees realize that this is an extra perk - that legally we don't have to do this.

Evergreen · November 2002

Thanks for you input. I think that we will adopt a "over 8" policy and keep reminding them of how gracious we are.

over 8 or over 40

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