Employee working extra undocumented hours
jdarrough
26 Posts
:help: We are a public employer who may offer comp. time. I just found out that an hourly employee in one of our offices has been working 40 hours or more per week but only claiming 20. ACK!!!!!!! I am trying to figure out where to START to fix this! (Please, I beg you, don't say go to our attorney. I AM the attorney!) I don't think this employee has kept track of all her hours either.
Okay, so our state doesn't have many employment laws at all, and I have those covered, so my question are more general/federal.
Can we offer comp time alone for all the extra hours? Or, do I have to offer a mixture of comp and pay? I can't even begin to fathom what to do if this woman worked overtime in excess of 40 hours per week! Please, any advice you can offer would be most appreciated!
I first plan on sending a letter to her and her supervisor telling them that she must be compensated in some form for any work she performs. I also need to clarify in no uncertain terms that any additional time she works is NOT volunteerism, as she tried to claim. (She's doing her exact same job in the exact same office.) I will ask if they have records of her extra hours worked. What then?
To add to this mess, we offer state retirement benefits and insurance eligibility to anyone who works over 20 hours per week. How do I handle that, and retroactively to boot?
Again, please help. I truly would appreciate any advice our great gurus on these forums can offer!
Okay, so our state doesn't have many employment laws at all, and I have those covered, so my question are more general/federal.
Can we offer comp time alone for all the extra hours? Or, do I have to offer a mixture of comp and pay? I can't even begin to fathom what to do if this woman worked overtime in excess of 40 hours per week! Please, any advice you can offer would be most appreciated!
I first plan on sending a letter to her and her supervisor telling them that she must be compensated in some form for any work she performs. I also need to clarify in no uncertain terms that any additional time she works is NOT volunteerism, as she tried to claim. (She's doing her exact same job in the exact same office.) I will ask if they have records of her extra hours worked. What then?
To add to this mess, we offer state retirement benefits and insurance eligibility to anyone who works over 20 hours per week. How do I handle that, and retroactively to boot?
Again, please help. I truly would appreciate any advice our great gurus on these forums can offer!
Comments
I am not sure, but I think comp time is for use instead of paying overtime, not regular time. Plus, I am assume there is a limit as to how long after the event you can give it out so even if you use this option, you are limited in how much can be done; not to mention the complications of trying to apply this to your other benefits. In addition, it is not a good idea to carry any of this from one fiscal year over into another.
Your retirement plan is probably based on pay, so you would have to make a correlating adjustment to the retirement plan. If she is already a participant, it will not be too hard. If you have not made ANY deposits for this employee because she did not qualify, then you should talk to whomever is in charge of the plan so you can discover how to fix errors and do so.
Your health plan will have a method to fix errors too, but in this case you need to make sure the employee wants to elect the coverage. Assuming you reduce her back to 20 hours and she no longer qualifies, she may not want to.
Handle each item separately, with the pay item first. I would go ahead and contact the retirement plan people so you at least know what your options are.
I hope the supervisor and the employee learn something from this, especially the supervisor (who should have been trained to know better).
Good luck!
Nae