Wages & Hours

Strike down the hidden tyranny of pay for performance

12/05/2013

Rewarding your company’s star employees with the heftiest pay raises might not be enough to keep them from looking to jump ship if you expect them to take up the slack of associates who do the bare minimum.

New Calif. wage-and-hour legislation increases employer obligations

12/03/2013

California employers must begin complying with several new wage-and-hour laws enacted in recent weeks. Recent legislation provides overtime pay for domestic workers, mandates more pay for missed “cool-down” breaks, increases damages for minimum wage violations and adds other employer obligations.

Ignore an overtime lawsuit, hand a win to workers

12/03/2013

Can’t convince management that they shouldn’t ignore an overtime lawsuit? Share this horror story.

5th Circuit adds confusion to OT in misclassification cases

12/02/2013

It just got more complicated to calculate the overtime pay you owe a misclassified employee. In Black v. SettlePou P.C., the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court’s ruling concerning the proper methodology for calculating damages when an employee is misclassified as exempt.

Stormy weather: How to pay when Old Man Winter causes absences

12/02/2013

When harsh winter weather bumps up against the FLSA, the result can be a blizzard of pay problems for you. Employees often come in late, leave early or miss work altogether. How should you count their hours—and their pay? Here’s a flowchart that breaks down your options.

Is probationary employee entitled to holiday pay?

11/29/2013

Q. Are we required to offer holiday pay to employees who are within their 90-day probationary period? Or can we start paying extra for holiday work only after the probationary period is complete?

How should we handle time tracking for nonexempt telecommuters?

11/27/2013

Q. We try to be a flexible workplace and sometimes get requests from employees to work from home for a day or two during school breaks and so on. I don’t have a problem with this for exempt employees, but what about hourly ones? How do we track that time?

High-level managers have pay discretion? You’re courting a class-action lawsuit

11/26/2013

Broad discretion about compensation at the bottom of the pay scale usually prevents employees from pursuing a class-action lawsuit similar to the one in the Supreme Court’s 2011 landmark Wal-Mart v. Dukes case. However, all bets are off if the issue is pay for higher-level employees.

Ex-worker didn’t return property: Can we tap his PTO?

11/22/2013

Q. After an employee quit, he failed to return certain company property (badge, access card, etc.). Can we legally withhold his PTO balance because of this?

Found misclassification problem? Fix it fast

11/19/2013

Avoid costly litigation by reviewing how you classify your employees as exempt or nonexempt. If you discover you have made a mistake, fix it right away. You’ll cut your misclassification liability.