Rounding time

System · November 2005

It is my understanding that when an employer allows an employee to clock in, say 5 or 10 minutes early, but still rounds their starting time to the closest hour, they must also do so on the other side of that hour. For example - staring time is 8am. Employee clocks in at 7:50am. The employer rounds that starting time to 8am and pays him accordingly. Now, lets say the employee clocks in at 8:07am. Isn't the employer obligated to round back to 8am and pay them as if they started at 8am? They may still be considered tardy for disciplinary purposes, but I thought that wage and hour rules require the employer to "round back" the same amount of time that they "round up". So if they allow clock in 10 minutes before the hour, but do not pay that time, they must also do that on the other side of the hour as well, paying the employee as if they clocked in at 8am, even though they clocked in at 8:10am. Anyone disagree with that interpretation of the rules?
A sizable bet is riding on this......

HRCalico · November 2005

I'm very intersted to see what others have to say. I'm not aware of any specific regs on this, but we don't follow the practice of rounding the other way. Our policy states that employees can clock in up to 15 minutes early, I believe, and the time clock is set to round them to their start time. If they clock in late, they are paid from the minute they clock in.

I explain the reason for this in orientation as the time clock is near the front door, so by the time you clock in, put away your lunch, hang up your coat, get to your work station, say good morning to your buddy, and actually get to work, it's pretty close to your start time. (The time clock is about as far from any work station as it can be, but it is in the most central location, if that makes any sense.)

I have a feeling you're betting on the side of rounding the other side of the hour, and while I don't want you to lose, I also don't want to have a wrong policy on the books!

System · November 2005

You're right - I'm betting on the "both sides" approach. I can't seem to put my hands on a specific regulation either, but many moons ago, I was informed by our CFO that Wage and Hour requires the balance of rounding on both sides of the hour (he claims he was told personally of this during an audit at a previous company). Although I had not heard of that, it doeas make sense in that if a company does not pay someone for a portion of time, even though they clocked in, the company must extend the same "courtesy" to the employee on the other side of the hour as well. Its the ol' "can't have your cake and eat it to" syndrome. I have never called Wage and Hour for an interpretation, but will probably do so in the near future. Just curious as to how other companies handle this situation.

atrimble · November 2005

We don't have time clocks, so we go on the employee's word as to when they started working. We do pay in 15 minute increments for overtime purposes, but our paid leaves are in half or full hour increments. So if someone is less than 22 1/2 minutes late (due to a sick kid, for example), we'd request they make up the first 15 minutes by working extra and forget the next 7 1/2 minutes. If someone is less than 7 1/2 minutes late, just forget it, but if they're 9 minutes late, we expect them to work 15 minutes to make it up. If they start work less than 7 minutes early, it's as if they came on time. If they start 10 minutes early, they can flex out 10-15 minutes before the end of the week, or take 15 minutes overtime.

So, I guess we round on both sides. The only regs I've seen on rounding are about defining where you split the pay increment (e.g., if you pay only in 30 minute increments, then the 14th minute rolls back and 16th minute rolls forward.), but it's up to the employer to set the pay increments (at least in Missouri). But when you've got time clocks and pay by the minute (like servers in a restaurant), then no rounding would be needed. I'd hate to track work time in a 2400-minute (40 hours) per week unionized factory setting...! I mean, what if Joe Blow works 2396 minutes in his work week - does he lose benefits for that week since he's under that 40 hour cut off?

Wildsporty · November 2005

I don't know what your bet is, however, we actually had this come up in an audit. We were told that if we rounded off the front end we also had to use the same rounding off at the other end.

If we did not do this it would be unfair to the employee and it could also be considered timecard fixing (whatever that means).

The main idea they wanted to get across was that the DOL was okay with rounding as long as it was fair to the employee , consistent and on both ends.

Shirley L McAllister
AIM HR
Idaho
[email]smcallister@aimintl.com[/email]

Down_the_Middle · November 2005

Wildsporty hit the nail on the head. Rounding must be done, consistently, uniformly and on both ends. While many employers round to the nearest 1/10th of an hour, you are free to round to whatever you choose as long as its consistent. You can also change the rounding method at any time provided you communicate this to employees ahead of time so everyone knows the rules.

Gillian3 · November 2005

Ditto to the equality brigade. I don't have a citation but the whole idea of rounding is to keep some equality to that employees are not penalized by not being paid for time they have worked.

Wildsporty · November 2005

When the DOL was conducting their audit what they conveyed to me was that we could round to the nearest 15 minutes which we use for coming to work which would deduct if they were late. If they worked 15 minutes over we also had to round to the next 15 minutes to pay them for their extra work.

If they work unauthorized overtime or come in early than it becomes an attendance issue and must be delt with as such.

We cannot deal with it through the timecard rounding as it is against the law and is seen by the DOL as timecard fixing.

Consistency is the key. If you round it must be both on the front end and on the back end.

Shirley

E Wart · December 2005

About 5 years ago, I worked on this as a project. All of our locations did things differently (and still do). I talked with Fed. DOL folks. You can round, but you round up as well as down. (If you round every 15 minutes, anyone clocking in from 7:53-8:07 would be paid from 8:00. 8:08-8:22 would be paid from 8:15 and so forth.) The DOL rep said employees may get paid more one time and less another. The only thing he warned was that you MUST be consistent. Do everyone at the same location the same way, each week. Don't do one way one week and another the next. We have one location that rounds each 5 minutes, another each 15 minutes, another each .10 minutes (which is 6 minutes), and several that have changed to pay from exact clock in.
Also, most importantly, check with the state. I have found that some have rules that override the federal law (CT I know is one.)

HRCalico · December 2005

I just got out of a FLSA training session and this was one of the questions I had that was actually covered. (The training was not great.) E Wart has it pretty much dead on - you must be consistent, and while you CAN always benefit the employee, you CANNOT always benefit the company. i.e. you can't round up in the morning and down at night(7:45 to 7:50 and 5:15 to 5:10), but you can round both up (to 7:50 and 5:20), both down (to 7:40 and 5:10), or down in the morning and up at night (to 7:40 and 5:20). And as E Wart says, you can pick what you round to, as long as it is fair and makes sense.

I believe we are going to change to recording time from the minute of clocking in, and tell employees to not clock in before a few minutes before their shift and then discipline accordingly.

Now if I can get the automatic half-hour deduction for lunch straightened out . . . I see a lot of 12-14 minute lunches go by that no one else minds.

HRCalico · December 2005

And one last post to tie up the loose ends or in case anyone stumbles across this in a search - the DOL reg regarding this can be found here:
[url]http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_785/29CFR785.48.htm[/url]

and it says:
(b) Rounding practices. It has been found that in some industries, particularly where time clocks are used, there has been the practice for many years of recording the employees' starting time and stopping time to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. Presumably, this arrangement averages out so that the employees are fully compensated for all the time they actually work. For enforcement purposes this practice of computing working time will be accepted, provided that it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.
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I think the last line is from where the opinion comes that it must be consistently applied and so that it is not always to the detriment of the employee and benefit of employer.

Rounding time

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