Half Time vs Part Time Employees
HRManager
82 Posts
Help, I desparately need an answer to this topic. We are in Minnesota.
HRManager
82 Posts
Comments
Half time and part-time could mean almost anything your company wants it to mean. Employers who have full-time and part-time employees define the difference in their company policies to determine eligibility for company benefits such as insurance, paid leave, sick time, etc. My policy says part-time employees must work 30 hours per week to be eligible for any benefits. To my knowledge, there is not a federal law designating either.
You are not required to pay overtime under federal law unless the non-exmept employees work more than 40 hours in a week (in some states, such as Calfiornia, there may be additonal overtime provisions or a lower limit). I'm not in Minnesota so I don't know what stte law is there. Thus if your part time employee only works 20 hours in a work week, you are not legally required under federal law to pay time and a half. YOu can half a company policy that does that, of course. But then you'd be snubbing the faces of your full time employees who probably don't get overtime until the pass the 40 hour mark. It's up to your company management on what they want to do. I wouldn't pay overtime for the part timers who work more than their scedule time but less than 40 hours per week. But, that's your company's decision to make
Under federal law, fringe benefits are strictly a matter of company policy as it relates to at what point employees qualify for them...some companies do allow part timers to receive them but they also may set minimum amount of hours to be worked to qualify. Again, I don't kow what Minnesota law calls for.
Further, it is possible to have a sliding scale for fringe benefits...the more hours worked (as a set condition of the job), the more fringe benefits the employee is entitled to. For example, the employee who was hired to work only 9 hours a week may recieve only the barest and least costly of fringe benefits, if you want to go that way. The 20-hour emplyee could receive more, or may be half of the fringe benefits that a full timer receives (assuming full time is 40 hours per week). Or you don't have to give them at all. That way, you could entice many people to come work on a full time basis.
One other area possibly to look at for both whether you should pay overtime to your part timers and how to deal with fringe benefts for them is your industry. What is the custom or practice in your industry in employing part timers? You're not bound by what you're industry does, but you do want to remain competitve in hiring and in costs.