Wants to clean office-Now is a paralegal

njjel

We have an employee who works in a small office of our who is a paralegal and she works usually a 35 hour work-week. She has asked if she can do the janitorial work for that office. Can we treat the two positions separately as far as hours worked in a week or must they be added together?

NeedCoffee

I believe you have to add the two together, but I am not positive on that. Perhaps some other forumites can clear it up???

njjel

Yes that is correct. (So I found out when calling the state DOL) All hours are added together but how the o/t is calculated is a formula they use. We have decided not to allow the employee to clean as it is a nightmare for finance.

hrdilemma

We have one of our employees who cleans our office building at night. What we did with her is she bid on the job and we took bids from outside as well. Her bid was the lowest. She bid in her cleaning company name and we pay her by invoice through our AP department and she gets a 1099 at year end. This has been going on for several years now.

stilldazed

You didn't specify, but is your paralegal position an exempt position or hourly? You can pay separate wages for the two positions, whether they are hourly or a mix of exempt/nonexempt. Or because there is such a difference in the work tasks for paralegal vs. custodial, you may be able to get away with considering her custodial work as contract work and paying by invoice. You do have some options, but in reading between the lines, you mention 35 hours per week, so I'm wondering if the custodial work is an effort to bring her weekly hours closer to 40, and perhaps make her eligible for FT benefits?

If both positions are nonexempt and you choose to pay different rates for different jobs, the OT calculations can be a little tedious (your payroll staff might not like the arrangement), but any hours worked in the single week (regardless of which job) would be applied toward the 40-hr work week for OT purposes.

A contractor situation (in case that was an option for your) would prevent the OT situation because of the addition of the custodial work.

In case you are interested in the independent contractor option, research the (multiple) definitions of independent contract and be sure that it is applicable.

best wishes,

njjel

She's hourly and in NJ the options you mention are not available but thanks for the input.

Cheryl S SPHR

FLSA provides specific guidance on how to handle such situations. It is complicated and we have made the decision not to allow employees to have two different jobs with our company.

Good luck.