Back in 2008, Illinois enacted what at the time must have seemed like a relatively obscure law to address privacy concerns associated with biometric information – the Biometric Information Privacy Act or “BIPA”. At the time, biometric devices existed, but they weren’t terribly common. Today, many of us carry a sophisticated fingerprint reader or face
Recordkeeping
Be Careful When Using Biometric Information
While not strictly speaking a wage and hour issue, here is a heads-up to any employers that use timekeeping systems featuring biometric security, like a thumbprint or fingerprint scanner:
You might want to read this recent Crain’s Chicago Business article about a class action lawsuit recently filed against the Mariano’s chain of grocery stores under…
Thoughts On Payroll By Exception and Weekly Time Sheets
In a recent blog post, Wage and Hour Administrator David Weil tries to underplay employer concerns about the new overtime exemption rules, including worries about the difficulty of tracking time for employees who are not used to recording their hours, stating:
There’s no requirement that employees “punch in” and “punch out.” Employers have flexibility in designing systems to make sure appropriate records are kept to track the number of hours worked each day.
And in the DOL’s information sheets for higher education institutions and non-profit organizations (.pdfs) regarding the new rules, the Department suggests two alternatives to the traditional punch clock setup:
o For employees who work a fixed schedule that rarely varies, the employer may simply keep a record of the schedule and indicate the number of hours the worker actually worked only when the worker varies from the schedule.
o For an employee with a flexible schedule, an employer does not need to require an employee to sign in each time she starts and stops work. The employer must keep an accurate record of the number of daily hours worked by the employee. So an employer could allow an employee to just provide the total number of hours she worked each day, including the number of overtime hours, by the end of each pay period.
The Department is of course correct that either of these methods – the “payroll by exception” approach or the peroding time sheet – can be a permissible method of tracking employee time. The FLSA regulations don’t mandate any particular method of tracking employee time. They require only that the record be accurate. But it’s this mandate for accuracy that makes payroll by exception and time sheets a potentially dangerous way to approach timekeeping under the FLSA.Continue Reading Thoughts On Payroll By Exception and Weekly Time Sheets
Do we have to keep track of exempt employee time? [Wage & Hour FAQ]
Q. We keep track of work hours for non-exempt employees using an electronic timekeeping system. For our exempt employees, we really have no records of how many hours they are working each day or week. Are we required to? Even if it’s not required, should we?
A. Like many legal questions, the answer is “it depends.” The first question is somewhat easier. The FLSA requires employers to maintain accurate records of the hours worked by non-exempt employees, but not for exempt executive, administrative, or professional employees. If your employees work in a jurisdiction that does not have its own additional recordkeeping requirements, then no, you are generally not required to keep records of your exempt executive, administrative or professional employees’ work hours.
However, some states do have their own recordkeeping requirements. Continue Reading Do we have to keep track of exempt employee time? [Wage & Hour FAQ]
Determining When a Commission is “Earned” When Calculating the Regular Rate
In our last post, we discussed the calculation of the “regular rate” and some of the complexities of determining what constitutes “remuneration” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Commission is one of the additional forms of compensation that you must include in a non-exempt employee’s regular rate. Such a calculation is relatively straightforward…
Employee’s Failure to Report Off the Clock Work Not a Total Defense Says 11th Circuit
Last summer, we highlighted an example of how good recordkeeping practices can result in a favorable decision. In the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan case, the employer successfully defended an “unauthorized overtime” claim where an employee worked off the clock against Kaiser’s policies and without its knowledge. A recent Eleventh Circuit decision demonstrates the limits of…
The Pay Period Leap Year: Handling an Extra Pay Period in 2015
We all can recall the traditional Mother Goose rhyme to remember how many days each month had: “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have 31….Except for February.” It always seemed odd that this supposed Mother Goose rhyme couldn’t figure out how to fit February in. The payroll calendar, at least…
Good Things Come To Those Who Document Good Wage & Hour Practices
Remember those Guinness commercials from the early 2000s with the tagline “Good things come to those who wait” (or maybe, if you predate the no-mess squeeze bottles, you remember the Heinz ketchup commercials with the same tagline from the 1980s)? In wage and hour law, good things come to those who document good wage and…
Defense Appropriations “Wage Theft” Amendment May Bar Employers with FLSA Violations from Defense Contracts
Late last month, the Senate referred the Fiscal Year 2015 Defense Appropriations Act to the Senate Committee on Appropriations for consideration. The House of Representatives passed its version (H.R. 4870) on June 20 with substantial bipartisan support, 340-73, after considering 80 different amendments. Since this is a wage and hour blog, you can…
Starting Computers and Reading E-Mail May Be Compensable Work
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement with Hilton Reservations Worldwide, LLC, in which the company agreed to pay $715,507 in minimum wages and overtime pay to 2,645 current and former customer service employees in Texas, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The DOL determined after an audit that the company failed to pay…