I'm aware of that...however, non-exempt employees are required by law to be paid for all time worked. So it MUST be rounded up, because employees must be paid for ALL time that they work. If the employer only pays in increments, then they will need to eat the additional amount of time since this is their policy.
I'm sorry - you're simply wrong here and your position makes it clear you have limited or zero experience with these hourly workers.
If your employee is scheduled to 9pm, and they clock out at 9:01.. or even 9:05.. you don't have to pay them for those minutes after 9:00pm. Their hours are rounded down to the 9:00 time. This is not illegal. All time is rounded for obvious reasons. 1) simplicity 2) to avoid abuse of the timeclock 3) to allow flexibility in the real world 4) The practical nature not everyone can use the time clock simultaneously.
That time 'disappears' - it does not add-up incrementally over the pay period. Employers are not required to round up all fractions - you round to the nearest. That means there are periods where you 'work' beyond the hour and don't get paid. That's real world and no it's not illegal. The employee also benefits the inverse when they clock out a few minutes early on the clock.
Rounding is allowed under the spirit that employees in the 'net' will still get paid for all their time worked. With the assumption that the buffer works both in + and - before the hour. Shorter increments are preferable so you have a stronger case as an employer that the employees are actually compensated for all their worked time.
Employers with hourly workers who clock in and out tend to have very strict policies in place here to ensure employees are able to clock out within the window of give for their scheduled time to avoid having labor budget leak haphazard while simultaneously trying to get employees to work their full shift and not 'clock watch'.
You're wrong. As you stated, they are telling them to "round down," which means they will not get paid for any overtime they worked that is under 15 minutes (I'm going to assume the pay OT in 30 minute increments, since that was the example the memo used). As I said above, the law requires any non-exempt employee (which if you are paid hourly, you are) to be paid for ALL time that is worked.
Wrong. The suggestion was clearly to not claim OT worked if it falls under 15 minutes . That's illegal. The law requires an employer to pay their employees for OT. Employers are not allowed to tell employees not to report time. Wal-Mart is constantly getting in trouble for that behavior.
They are not telling them to not report time - they are telling them to
not extend their working time to the point of requiring overtime. That is not illegal! Telling your employee to 'go home' and stop working to avoid overtime IS NOT ILLEGAL. Reporting 9:00 instead of 9:07 means NOTHING if you are paper logging your hours and 7 minutes is under the rounding point. You're not even required to log exact times - only hours. But most employers require finer detail to ensure the backing material is there behind the hours logged to defend claims.
Being past the hour triggers the requirement of the employer to pay OT. They are free to fire employees who frequently do this, but they still have to pay for the overtime.
No - working past the hour on the clock does NOT trigger OT - working to the
time increment that rounds to the fraction of the hour would require being paid for that time. Don't confuse the issue of 'authorized' time vs the subject on hand here which is rounding of time logged to a fractional hour.
On the subject of authorized time, this type of letter is actually beneficial to make it clear to employees the employer's intention for how much work they want scheduled because it's obvious in this situation the employees are lacking an in person manager to specifically release them from their shift. These appear to be independent workers assigned to complete a task.. and the employer is telling them how to balance the importance of getting the task DONE vs the time on the clock. The employer is telling them to delay work rather than push into overtime.
The issue of 'authorized' time is that the employer must pay for hours worked even if the employer did not authorize them - so such a letter is not grounds to not pay people who actually logged more hours.. but would be basis for further disciplinary action with the employee if necessary if the employee were to continue to work in excess of their scheduled time. The employee is being notified of how the employer expects them to terminate their shifts and STOP WORKING.
That may have been the intended spirit of the memo, but as far the OT statements, they're telling people explicitly not to claim it if under a certain amount of time...which IS illegal.
No - they are telling them to not work past the the time that would require an additional increment of pay. You clearly are not familiar with the standard (and legal) practice of how fractional hours are rounded UP and DOWN - and are misunderstanding that to mean they are telling them to MISREPRESENT YOUR TIME - which is not what the memo is talking about.
