"Comp" Time

rescogirl

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-18-02 AT 09:07AM (CST)[/font][p]Is it legal for a non-profit, non-governmental organization to require exempt employees to document on their timesheet the number of hours that they work over or under the regular normal working hours -- resulting in "comp" time earned/taken? What are the risks involved here? Is this against the Fair Labor Standards Act?

NaeNae55

It is my understanding that only government employees can use comp time. Any private sector employer risks losing their exempt standing on any position which allows this.

Having said that, I remember working for an employer who had individuals who worked over a lot keep track of their time. The employer never looked at it or asked about it, but the employee used it to judge for themselves if they had a little time off coming. The hours were not expected to be used on an hour for hour basis, and a full day off was never allowed except under the most extreme circumstances. When I had about 400 hours coming to me, I stopped keeping track. I did, however, get a full day off once. I had to really put in some time when a certain situation came up. After it was all over, I asked for a day off. When I presented my leave request, my boss told me to just take the day off, and she tore up my request so my vacation bank was not charged. I think it worked there because it was something employees kept track of, not the employer. Also, it was done to help keep things equitable as other departments had exempt employees who didn't seem to understand that they should at least try to be at work 40 hours during the week.

sonny

I think that the risk that you run here is that if you have exempt employees having to account for and use their time on an hour by hour they "look" like hourly employees and hence jepordize (sp?) their exempt status. Not being a governmental enity, I think you are also at risk and even governments must allow the comp. time at time and half, I do believe.

Down_the_Middle

rescogirl:

Do a search on this site for "comp time" and I think you'll be flooded with info that will help you understand that comp time for non-governmental employers is illegal! As far as tracking the time of exempt staff, I don't think there's anything that prevents you from doing this, but my question is: "What will you do with the info???" If the tracking is for a specific project, then that's understandable, but I don't see any other basis for doing it. If someone wants to see how many hours are being worked by exempt staff, then you're setting yourself up for a dilemma if the intent is to reduce that person's weekly pay based on actual hours worked. It's a little unclear why the tracking is desired.

bsa

It is NOT legal for a non-governmental entity to use "comp" time.

It is neither legal or illegal to have exempt employees document time worked. Recording exempt hours worked becomes a problem when that time record is used to adjust an exempt's pay to reflect the hours worked or not worked.

The risk to the company is a disgruntled exempt employee complaining to the DOL and the company being found guilty of violating FLSA regulations. If there is not a business reason for tracking hours worked (maybe to generate a customer invoice) the DOL could decide that the exempt employees were misclassified due to being required to keep record of their hours worked. Then the DOL would use the time records to penalize the company for overtime not paid. One employee complaint opens your doors for the DOL to review your whole payroll and it's history!

njjel

At a recent wage and hour seminar the same question was asked and we were advised that since exempt employees get paid the same amount, that comp time can be given as it's not an issue.

System

njjel: I agree. Comp time is generally illegal in the private sector when it replaces OT, so it shouldn't matter too much if you give comp time to a salaried exempt. (Tho I don't think I'd do it except in unusual situations.)

The big problem here is treating exempts like hourly employees, as everyone else pointed out.

James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Don D

We do require what we call 'time sheets' for all salaried employees, whether exempt or not. Naturally this serves as our official document for the payment of overtime and also allows us to properly audit, account for and track such things as FMLA, Sick Leave and Vacation Leave for exempts as well. Additionally, our shift supervisors are paid an additional amount that we technically call a 'quarterly bonus' for having worked what might be called overtime if they were non-exempt. This is the best way we've found to cross match (between HR and Payroll) the proper documentation of leaves. There are all sorts of uses that can be made of time sheets that are in no way illegal or ill-advised.

Pork

It is my understanding that time keeping for exempt employees for the purpose of time recorded and charged out is a normal course of business for certain exempt positions, such as "attorney". He/she must keep these times for purpose of billing. If your company can not justify their reasoning for keeping one's time for adding to or taking away from one's income, then this would be considered "in violation of the FLSA". We can not use the FLSA for our benefit and deny the employee their rightful income by using the exempt paragraph to lessen the cash received. The wage and hour "dawgs" would be after that "coon" in a flash! Dandy Don for example has his use of record keeping for exempts well documented and he would turn the "coon dawgs" to another tree. I on the other hand would use the reason for asking my managers "overseeing a complete operation with an individual time clock" as verifying for legal purposes and legal purposes only, the coming and the goings of my managers for their testimony should it ever be needed. We have in the past have had a need to know for our defense of his/her actions the fact that the manager was in a particular location at a particular time. The time card was our verification of the manager's testimony in fact that he/she was there, where he was supposed to be. If your company can justify their use of time keeping for exempt employees then they are most likely not in violation; just from the information you provided in asking "I would bet a 5lb Robin is fat" and your company's use of time keeping for exempts is suspect.

Rockie

For those who are tracking "comp" time and "extra hours" what do you base this on for a salaried person? If a salaried person has not set hours per week to work, i.e., 35;40 hours, then what is considered "working over the alloted time?" This is where people's thought processes get them in trouble. They are basing salaried personnel on the erroneous assumption that they have a work week of 40 hours and anything over this is "comped" out. This is where the DOL will "bite" you for accounting for salaried employees' time hour for hour.

Salaried personnel are not paid hour for hour and therefore time nor money can be counted in this way towards them.

Don D

FLSA does not prohibit the payment of bonuses to exempt personnel based on whatever the employer chooses to base them on and we base them on time sheets as a tracking method. We have a formula that I cannot reveal without having to kill you. Our shift supervisors are assigned to shifts that extend eight hours so they typically pull 8 hour shifts themselves. They do not start early or stay over when relieved by the oncoming supervisor and by definition they are exempt working 40 hour weeks. These jobs that we pay bonuses to are totally unlike most support function exempt jobs that have no beginning time and no specific ending time and never a lunch.