When does a temporary employee become permanent?

Gale · December 2002

Must we keep an employee (that we consider temporary) under a certain amount of hours per year? If they work more than that, are they then eligible for medical, dental, vision, STD, LTD, 401K? I am looking for a concrete definition of a temporary employee.

Gillian · December 2002

There is no concrete definition that I am aware of. There may be definitions contained in benefit plans but that varies. There are definitions created by employers for the purpose of accruing benefits such as vacation but that varies. I think that you define what is full time and what is part time, recognizing that classifying a person as part time, then working them for more than can create morale problems if you do that more than just occasionally.

kwelzel · December 2002

I wonder if the original question is more in reference to the issues that happened to the big dot.com company that kept a majority of employees on a temp status - to avoid paying them benefits - yet used them in every aspect of their jobs as full-time employees. There were big lawsuits over that one!

Gillian · December 2002

Could be. The result of all those issues is the Silicon Valley Punishment Act, which for us in California requires that we pay overtime to certain computer workers even if they are making well over $40.00 per hour - a lot more than the FLSA level.

System · December 2002

Here's an article about Microsoft's problem:
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/national/microsoft.shtml[/url]

James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers

pmaher · July 2003

I need this article but can't get to it. Can you help? I have issues trying to get our permatemps off the books or hired as regulars and am collecting information to increase the comfort level of our managers. Thanks.

System · July 2003

I had removed the article because it's pretty old, but I put it back up so the link should work now. If you subscribe to our Employment Law Letter in your state, you can find newer articles on this topic in the subscribers area of HRhero.com.

Good luck.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

skyrocket · July 2003

Perhaps it was just an oversight, but I would never use the term "become permanent" - especially if you use that word in communicating the status change to the employee. If you use that bad word "permanent" either in writing or verbally, you could invalidate any "at-will" policies you have in place.

When does a temporary employee become permanent?

Comments