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K Roberts · March 2002

Our Surgery Center is going to allow employees to attend a Friday/Saturday seminar at our expense. The seminar is optional. Employees are not required to go. We are wanting to pay the employees that choose to go their usual working hours for Friday but not for the attendence on Saturday. Saturday is not a regular working day. Since we are picking up the cost of going to the seminar are we required to pay them the hours they are there on Saturday?

TheCol · March 2002

Your key word is "optional". Like, truly. No sideways pressure. In such case, normal week pay would govern. That you are paying the Seminar costs is not really a factor. They could pay their own way with the same outcome.

santire · March 2002

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-29-02 AT 09:56AM (CST)[/font][p]You need not pay for training time for a nonexempt employees if all of the following four factors exist: First: the training is outside regular working hours (example is a Saturday if typical work week is Monday through Friday but read on), second: the training is voluntary, third: the subject matter of the training is not directly related to the job (will or could the training directly enhance the work the nonexempt emplyee performs for you?), and fourth: the employee does not do any "real" or productive work during the attendance (i.e. take notes and shares in the workplace what was learned with other employees after the training is over to improve the performance of those other employees). Note the word "and" just before the fourth factor. If any one or more of the four factors is missing, you must pay regardless of the training being on a Friday or a Saturday. If an exempt employee is doing it, you simply do not pay for the training time since you do not pay exempt employees according to hours worked. So whether the above factors are encountered in an exempt employee's training experience is not relevant.

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