Employers are responsible for keeping track of the hours and minutes their employees work.
If you can’t show your records are accurate, lawsuits claiming unpaid overtime can get costly. That’s because—absent reliable employer records—courts will let employees fill in the timekeeping details.
Make sure your records are easily explained and tamper-proof. Don’t let supervisors alter records without approval.
Also, don’t rely solely on schedules to re-create hours worked. Instead, adopt a good time-tracking system that’s appropriate for your work environment.
Recent case: Chris, who worked for UPS as a driver, sued the company, alleging it had altered his electronic time records to credit him with less overtime than he was entitled to. He came up with his own time records and asked the court to substitute them for what UPS said was correct.
The court said that the general rule is that if an employer’s records are suspect, then the employee’s reasonable assessment can be used.
Fortunately for UPS, it won the case based on another premise—namely that if the employee received more than time-and-a-half for the overtime hours he claims, then the records don’t matter anyway. Because UPS paid a far more generous rate than the Fair Labor Standards Act requires, that covered everything due, even if its records were wrong and the employee’s were correct. (Buckner v. United Parcel Service, No. 5:09-CV-411, ED NC, 2012)
Final note: The U.S. Department of Labor is so interested in accurate overtime that it offers an app for the iPhone and the iPod Touch that employees can use to calculate overtime pay. Its adoption is sure to spur additional litigation and is a good reason to make sure your records are dead-on accurate.
Time records affect FMLA, too
Employees can take FMLA leave if they’ve worked for an employer for more than a year and logged at least 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months. If your time records don’t include all time actually worked, it’s up to the employer to prove in court that the employee didn’t work enough hours to qualify. With poor records, that may be hard.
In one case, a flight attendant sued Continental Airlines, saying she was denied FMLA leave even though she worked more than 1,250 hours. But Continental’s HR people were able to produce documents showing the employee clocked only 1,127 hours, some 122 shy of the eligibility requirement. (Staunch v. Continental Airlines, 6th Cir.)
