Need help with over night pay

nietra · May 2005

I'm trying to decide what to do with our employees who live in the house for a week at a time.

According to this DOL website what we currently do is acceptable:

[url]http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/hoursworked/screenER46.asp[/url]

However we would like to compensate the employees for those hours in some way. By giving them a flat amount won't we be running into issues as far as what their base pay is in terms of overtime calculations?

Any creative suggestions on how to compensate but not run into the overtime issue?

HRinFL · May 2005

Maybe some more background will help. Why are they living in this house? What do they do while living there? Are they required to live there for a week at a time? What job do these ees hold? What are you currently doing?

nietra · May 2005

They are providing supports to persons with Mental Retardation. They are required to be in the home (can not freely leave) during the sleeping time and if called to work are paid for all hours they are called to duty.

Currently we pay for 16 hours of regular or overtime pay and then provide a nightly stipend for the 8 hours. The stipend then has to be calculated back into their regular hours to create an overtime wage. A payroll nightmare!

SMace · May 2005

I don't see how you can pay them more without having to adjust their OT rate.

Why not just boost their base wage during this time? That way you plug it into your payroll system and it will do the calculations for you.

nietra · May 2005

We were thinking about adjusting the wages of those employees but it was becoming just as much of a nightmare as the overtime issue. Some work more often then others and how do we fairly compensate for that?

Basically, currently we do more then the law requires and we want to continue to do so for the benefit of our employees but not run into a DOL fine when it comes to paying fairly.

jimbomt · June 2005

One possibility is changing to shift staff as opposed to live-in staff. We operate group homes for adolescents, and we moved from a houseparent/live-in staff to a shift staffing pattern. Not sure if that works for you.

nietra · June 2005

I wish we could but we need the consistancy of the staff in the homes. We found that having someone new in the home every eight hours increases the likelihood of behaviors we are trying to prevent.

HRCalico · June 2005

Nietra, you're way beyond me, here, but I'm going to throw this out - what about a shift differential? I don't think it would work straight across - you'd have to do some playing. We're manufacturing - about as far from the services you provide as we can get - but we pay 10% extra for people who work our 2nd shift. Maybe you could do something similar for people who work that shift? We only apply it to the hours they work on the 2nd shift, so if they come in on day shift for training, they don't get the differential.

It's a stretch, I know.

JKlink · June 2005

I had this situation with a client, so let me ask some questions:
1. Are the night hours of work their only hours of work for you?
2. How many employees are in the home at night?
3. Are they allowed sleep time?

nietra · June 2005

1. Are the night hours of work their only hours of work for you?

* No, they actually are working for us from 2 pm on Monday until 2:30 the next Monday

2. How many employees are in the home at night?

* Just the one employee

3. Are they allowed sleep time?

* All are given 8 hours of sleep time which we used to pay a flat rate for but this is where the overtime issue comes into play.

We have procedures set up if they don't get 8 hours of sleep.

JKlink · June 2005

I sent you a personal message.

Need help with over night pay

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