Be prepared to show the overall impact isn’t a negative one

 

There’s a common, and understandable, line of thinking that rounding nonexempt employees’ hours to a set time works because their hours will even out over time.

 

But this practice has come under scrutiny, warned Tammy McCutchen, attorney and former administrator of the Dept. of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division.

 

At the Society for Human Resource Management 2017 Annual conference & Exposition, she said in most cases rounding hurts employees, and it’s easy for DOL investigators to spot. So it’s become a popular target.

 

Case in point: Quik Park, a company that operates 138 parking garages in the New York City area, just got hit by the DOL for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime requirements.

 

The DOL said Quik Park rounded employees’ hours. The company also programmed its timekeeping system to automatically records employee’ scheduled work hours instead of the actual hours worked. These actions cost employees overtime pay.

 

Result? Quik Park paid $296,836 in back wages to affected workers.

 

Up or down?

 

The FLSA allows employees’ time to be rounded to the nearest quarter hour. Time from 1 to 7 minutes may be rounded down, and time from 8 to 14 minutes must be rounded up.

 

But be prepared to prove rounding doesn’t have an overall negative effect on staff.

 

More info: tinyurl.com/round536