Employee Meetings

jajwanda · June 2003

When having an employee meeting are we required to pay ee for that time?
The meeting consisited of going over the new medical insurance & a 401K. not that it matters but just wondering the legal side of this.

Parabeagle · June 2003

We always pay employees for attending meetings, if we require their attendance and it's not strictly voluntary. The 401(k) meetings are required to be paid, I believe, under the law (you'd have to check that. My information may be old.)

Leslie · June 2003

We pay for such meetings as they are mandatory.

scottorr · June 2003

We also pay ee for mandatory meetings and all of our benefit meetings are mandatory.

Lola815 · June 2003

I agree with all of the above. When a meeting is mandatory, we pay them.

LindaS · June 2003

Ditto.

Whatever · June 2003

It never occurred to me not to pay employees for attending mandatory meetings.

HRGirl · June 2003

I worked for a travel agency that had mandatory 7AM (start time was 9 for most of us)staff meetings that they did not pay ee's for. If you didn't show up, you could expect a call from the president of the company and it was noted in your review. This practice left everyone very bitter. Pay them and save yourself the hostility that follows from not paying.

ray a · June 2003

We hold benefit meetings with all ee's annually. They are held during normal working hours and everyone is paid. Sometimes for the benefit of the presenter, we will have 2nd shift come in early before their normal start time - we pay them from that point and allow them to leave early, or if workload justifies it, we pay them OT. The additional OT is an expense, but the goodwill it buys is worth it.

hrbanker · June 2003

Once upon a time we tried holding benefits meetings that were advertised 'not mandatory' so we didn't have to pay the employees, but it's not worth it. It caused some real headaches in HR when people really needed the information and didn't get it. Make it mandatory and pay them. It's cheaper in the long run.

HRQ · June 2003

I agree on benefit meetings - make it mandatory. If you don't make it mandatory (meaning not paid) the employees will just request information packets and try to go it alone on their own time. THEN you spend huge amounts of one-on-one time answering questions via phone calls, etc, regarding topics already covered at the meetings. Or you have employees out there who don't understand, therefore do not take advantage of, your benefits plan.

During open enrollment, I and one other person schedule half days at each location (16) and take a flow of employees, say 2-4 at a time, to review the info and go over paperwork. The supervisors just pull a few people away from their areas for 30 minutes or so. Incredibly time consuming, but once it's done, it's done and there aren't many loose ends.

joe1 · July 2003

We are required by our Labor Agreement to compensate for employee time spent at Company required and Company requested meetings.

Employee Meetings

Comments