Lori: So, welcome. So glad to have you all here today. We are focusing specifically today on... Let me grab the slide, the Fair Labor Standards Act. And you should all know... Why does it say it's screen-sharing the wrong screen? One sec. Let me make sure to get the right one. Oh, because I picked the wrong one. I want to point out that in the chat, we have given you all the slides three-up, so you can note-take. So if anybody wants to really quickly print those off, they're in the chat. Maybe we can throw them in one more time. There you go. Ashley's great. You can take notes as we go. We're also gonna send you the recording, so we should be good.

So, what is the Fair Labor Standards Act? The Fair Labor Standards Act is one federal law that was passed back in the 1940s. Really, after the Great Depression was the whole purpose of it, to outline how we pay our employees. And it is enormous. And yes, it will fill up the entire next hour, or 45 minutes or so. You guys are gonna have a lot of specific questions that I'm happy to try to answer. If you could, put those in the Q&A section, that would be great. Because this is so content-driven that I'm gonna go through the whole program and make sure that you have it, and then we'll use our time at the end to answer the questions.

So, I wanna go ahead real quick and launch the first poll. It will help me to understand how many years you've been in human resources. So, have you been in HR two or less years? Have you been in three to six years? Or, seven or more years? Or, let us know. Many of you are probably in an office manager role, you might be in an accounting role. We would love to know that you're not exclusive to HR. That helps us understand your position as well. So, Ashley, as soon as we get maybe 75%, 80%, 85%, let's go ahead and just share those results and see.

Okay. So, about half of our audience has been in HR for quite some time. And then we've got some things... So, Michelle and so many people are putting in the chats. That's great. So, that's perfect. Really helpful for me to know, because some of the super basics, I may go a little bit more quickly then, knowing that a lot of you have seven or more years of HR.

So, one of the first components we have to talk about with the Fair Labor Standards Act is that it is only a federal law. Now, many of you, in your state and local areas, have state and local laws that talk about a lot of what I'm gonna be talking about. So, what you always have to compare and look at is which is most advantageous to the employee? And that's the one you're gonna have to follow. So, as we go through here, I have a slide in a couple of minutes that I'm gonna be able to give you a perfect example. But understand that today, we're talking about the federal Fair Labor Standards Act law. You each, as you saw in the original chat, are from all over the country. And so you have to be aware as well of your state and local requirements. Now, let me take just one minute and tell you a little bit about myself. So, let me start this up.

Man: Meet Lori Kleiman of HR Topics. Lori's HR story begins in 1981, when she packed her bags for college at the University of Illinois, expecting to get a business degree and become an accountant, just like her dad. But numbers weren't her thing. So, with her degree in industrial sociology, Lori started her career as human resources director in her family's commercial photography business, employing 250 team members in five states. Working her way up to VP of operations, she learned the business of people.

Lori: Unfortunately, technology made the world of commercial photography obsolete. So I started my own HR consulting firm for small businesses, growing that enterprise to seven employees, working full-time in my home, and just under a million dollars in sales. But that wasn't sustainable. So...

Man: In 2007, Arthur J. Gallagher purchased Lori's consulting company. The entire team moved into the Gallagher Benefit Services operation, and took the business model of HR consulting to small business nationwide. Lori was a mentor to HR operations in Gallagher offices in Houston, Baton Rouge, east Florida, and more. But corporate life wasn't for Lori. And as much as Gallagher was great for her and the business, Lori left in 2013, and returned to her entrepreneurial work. Her new organization, HR Topics, works to support HR professionals and small businesses with actionable tools and tips to drive results. And to back up all the experience, Lori has a master's in HR, and holds SPHR and SHRM-SCP certifications.

Lori: So, whether your background is in a small family business, entrepreneurship, or large corporations, I just want to make sure that you know I've been there and done that, and I understand the HR challenges you're faced with every day. Now, let's get on with today's program.

Right. So, that gives you a little bit of where I've been and where I'm going. So, let's get back to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Essentially, it covers every component, minimum wage, whether or not people are exempt. What are the overtime requirements? Meal breaks, comp time. We're not gonna talk too much today about child labor. And then, timekeeping records. And we're gonna slowly cover every one of these components. So, minimum wage. This is one of those places where you have to look at state and local law versus the federal. So, right now, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. I used to incorrectly state that it's... So, that, obviously, your state law supersedes. I was corrected recently in a webinar that some of you are actually in states that your minimum wage is less than $7.25.

So, this is the case where you're going to pay whatever minimum wage is the highest in the area you operate in. Now, what we are finding today is that many areas of the country are starting to tier their minimum wage. What do I mean by that? I am originally from Chicago, Illinois. I still spend an awful lot of my time there. And the way minimum wage works now in Illinois is that there's a minimum wage for the city of Chicago. Then there's a different minimum wage for what I'll call the Greater Chicago Area, and that is by county, for some of the border counties to Chicago. And then the state minimum wage is lower than that. And if you think about the state of Illinois, it really makes a lot of sense. People who live and work right in the city of Chicago proper have very high cost of living.

The people that are living and working in downstate Illinois, for example, have a much lower cost of living. So, minimum wage has become a fairly complicated topic. And if you have operations in multiple jurisdictions, you have to make sure that you know, and that you are paying the proper minimum wage for every area you operate in.

Now, let's get into probably the most complicated part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. And that is the concept of who is exempt and who is non-exempt. This has nothing to do with salaried or hourly. Now, we tend to state pay for exempt employees as an annual salary. And we tend to state salary, or pay, for non-exempt employees in an hourly wage. But in theory, it doesn't matter, the two. Okay? Whether you're paying salaried or hourly, it has no impact under the law if someone is exempt or non-exempt. And what this means is exempt from overtime pay. That's why the word exists. So, you are either exempt from overtime, meaning you don't get overtime, or you have to pay overtime. There are five classifications that somebody can be exempt under. And we're gonna talk about those in the next slide. But I also like to share with you an option that somebody can be salaried non-exempt. And what that means is that you pay them a weekly salary, for ease of payroll, sometimes, because people just want to be salaried, because they think that's cool.

But if someone is salaried non-exempt, it means that if they work 37 hours a week, you don't dock their pay. But if they work 42 hours a week, they are entitled to two hours of overtime. So, it's a really good option for certain positions where you know that they hardly ever work overtime, but technically, they are still a non-exempt employee. So, let's look at the five classifications.

Somebody can be an executive or a manager. Now, there are a couple of criteria here. It means that they have to spend the majority of their time doing managerial work. So, if they are the customer service manager, and they are still taking calls in your call center throughout the day, they likely are not exempt. Now, they can take a couple calls to fill in for people for lunch, for a total of 90 minutes, and spend the rest of the day doing managerial work. But if they're on that phone log, and they're just allowed to sign themselves out because they need to do a project or something, they are likely not managers. We also look at the executive managerial classification as whether or not people can hire and fire. And that doesn't mean that they just sit in on the interviews. It means that they truly have the authority to decide who you're gonna bring in and who you're gonna get rid of.

The administrative personnel classification is somebody who has real decision-making authority in an administrative role. So, for instance, a lot of office managers are considered the administrative exemption. But if all they're really doing is ordering supplies from Staples, and making sure the front door is open on time, and stocking the coffee pot, and cleaning the kitchen, they are not exempt. If, however, they are the one who arranges for the lease for the copy machine, and they negotiate that, if they are working on a regular base with your landlord, they would be... You know, those kinds of things rise to the level of the administrative exemption.

The professional exemption is going to be things like accountant, lawyer, attorney, engineer, people who cannot do their job unless they had that professional degree. And I just realized there's a minor typo on this slide. Lumped in with the professional is also creative. So, if somebody is doing a job, let's say a graphic designer, and they have gone to graphic design school, and they are in charge of your branding, your logo, your website, everything that's creative, they go under that professional exemption as well.

The next exemption is the computer exemption. And the trick to the computer exemption is these cannot be your helpdesk people. This has to be the computer people that are actually working on the systems in your company. So, they're gonna be the database managers. They're gonna be your programmers. They're going to be the hardware engineers. Those kinds of things will fall under the computer exemption. And then, yeah, Christine, the next slide is where I'm gonna tell you to find more examples of all this.

The sales exemption, the real trick here, and this is a big trick these days, is that the sales exemption has to be outside sales. And the reason that has become a trick today is because so many of our salespeople are selling over Zoom and Teams and WebEx, and all the other platforms available. If your salespeople do not leave the office, they are technically not exempt. So, to Christine's point... Well, the one thing I wanna ask you to put in the chat, if you will. What exemption, because most of us, as HR professionals, do you believe human resource falls under? Go ahead and put it in the chat. I'm curious to see what you think.

Okay. So, perfect. I'm seeing that we're split about half and half between professional administrative, and, a lot of you are putting in managerial. And so, managerial, of course, would work if you're managing a team of HR people. Christy, you're right. There's a lot of the work we do that's non-exempt. That's for sure. And a lot of you are saying it depends. It absolutely depends on what you're doing in your organization. It would most likely fall under the administrative exemption, so that you, as long as, I should say, you are given the authority to speak on behalf of your organization.

So, for a lot of us, the administrative role is appropriate because we're representing our organization at unemployment hearings. We're deciding who gets hired, whether or not a supervisor can let someone go. If they come to you and have to ask that authority, you know, say, "I wanna fire Steven," and you have the authority to say, "No. Not unless you, you know, can prove to me or write them up," or whatever. So, that's where the administrative exemption's gonna come. The managerial exemption, as I said, if you're running a team of HR people, yes. It may fit in the executive. It really, that would depend on the job classifications. But I think for those people with seven or more years of HR, we likely are gonna fit under that administrative exemption. It doesn't mean you're doing administrative work, because don't forget, this is still an exempt classification. But we are administering the business.

The reason I don't believe human resources fits under the professional classification is because very few of us in human resources went to school to learn that. You don't need to go to school to learn HR to do HR. And that's the difference in the professional exemption. Okay? So, that's a little example of how to differentiate those. Now, I know we have tons of people on the call that are in the... Melanie, I'm gonna answer yours, and John, I'm gonna answer it for both of you. So, a lot of you are non-exempt. Absolutely. You are properly classified because you're starting your HR careers, and you are properly non-exempt employees.

Now, a lot of you who are saying, "I went to school. I have a degree. I have a master's degree," one of the important thing about these classifications is it doesn't matter who is in the job. You determine the exempt status when... Yes, Penny, that's exactly it. You do the exempt status of the job. So, you can have an accounts receivable clerk that has a CPA. It is still a non-exempt role. Because to do accounts receivable, you don't need a CPA.

So, let's move on, or we'll get stuck here. We always get stuck here. What I encourage you all to simply google is "Fact Sheet number 17A." And this document will come up. This is just exactly what I just went through. But it gives it to you in writing. And it's important that you explain to your leaders that this is not a discussion. This is where businesses get into the most trouble under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

So, what I encourage you to do is to print out or list all your job titles. Don't worry about who's in the job, because that's not important. And generally, I say, you can go through really quickly. And 95% of your jobs, you will be able to say exempt, exempt, exempt, non-exempt, non-exempt, non-exempt. But there are going to be job titles that are questionable. And sometimes those are ones you wanna run by your company attorney. I'm seeing a lot of people put questions about this in the chat. I'm gonna ask you to put it in the Q&A. I will be happy to answer them later, but I don't wanna get totally off-track right now. So, please move those to the Q&A. Or maybe, Kaylee or Ashley, if you can just capture a couple of these, we can do them at the end.

So, moving on from exempt and non-exempt. What are the overtime requirements? The overtime requirements on a federal level are really easy. Somebody works over 40 hours a week, they must be paid time and a half. So, things like the week of a holiday. Yesterday was Presidents Day. Some of you were closed, some of you weren't. Whether or not you legally do not have to pay overtime, if an employee received 8 hours holiday pay, and works 36 hours this week, legally, you do not have to pay time and a half. However, many of you have policies that say you're going to count holiday, vacation, sick time, as time worked. That is up to you. It's a lovely thing to do, but you don't have to do it.

Some of you work in states where you have to pay overtime over eight hours a day, but not the majority of us. So, I'm not gonna go too far down that rabbit hole. There is never a requirement to pay double time. Never, ever, ever. I hear all the time from people, you know, "Well, my employee says that they have to work on Thanksgiving or Christmas, something like that. They get double time." No. Never, ever, ever. So, the only federal requirement under the Fair Labor Standards Act is anything over 40 hours in a work week... So, you have to have, in your employee handbook... And if you haven't listened to our webinar last month, Ashley has all the webinars I've done. Last month, we did a whole program on employee handbooks. So, you know, in your employee handbook, you can certainly be more generous, and you need to spell out what your work week is.

Next thing in the Fair Labor Standards Act that I wanna talk about is actually something that's not in the Fair Labor Standards Act. And that is what do you do about meals and breaks? So, the one thing we do know about meals and breaks is that people have to be fully relieved of duty when they are having a meal. But there is no definition in the Fair Labor Standards Act about how long somebody gets for a meal, whether it's paid, whether it's unpaid. There is no requirement that people get two 15-minute breaks a day. I love when people come up and say that to me. None of that is required. So, where this comes into play all the time is your state and local law. Because the majority of our states outline what meals and breaks must be given. So, my favorite tip for you is, for anything you're wondering about, all you have to do is google "meal and breaks Ohio," "meal and breaks Tennessee," wherever you happen to be joining from, and the law will come right up. Okay? So, state law is pretty easy to find, but you just have to know to go look for it. So, when it comes to meals and breaks, please, please make sure that you're handling that.

Okay. Yeah, Randy, I'm gonna not address that right now, because it's pretty specific. The other piece of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sometimes is called "donning and duffing," which has to do with employees getting ready for work, or, like, putting on uniforms, for example. Employees that might have to clean up their work area at the end of a shift, before the next shift comes in. Maybe an employee is coming in, and you have a machine that's down, and so you're not ready for them to start their shift yet. Do you or do you not have to pay them? And that's where the term is, "waiting to engage," or "engaging to wait." And what do I mean by that?

So, if you have a machine go down in the middle of the day, and you say to employees, "We don't think this is gonna get up for another two to three hours. Go ahead, take off for a couple of hours, and please come back at 4:00." In that case, you do not have to pay them. Okay, they're not...they're waiting to engage... I mean, they're engaging to... No. They're waiting to engage. Okay? And they can be doing anything they wanna be doing. But if a machine goes down, and you say that the person is coming to fix it in the next 45 minutes to an hour, you know, please wait around the lunchroom, or whatever you want, so that we can get going, then you do have to pay them, because you're requiring them to stay around, okay?

So, it's really all about the restrictions you're putting on them. I use the example of having somebody put on a uniform. Technically, when they get to work and start putting on that uniform, you would have to start paying them. But if you give them a uniform, send it home with them, and tell them to come to work dressed, then no, you don't have to pay them. So it's all about whether or not it benefits you as the employer, then you have to pay them. If it's something that they can be doing anything they want, then you don't have to pay them.

Okay. Next piece, comp time. Comp time is technically, well, it is, I shouldn't say technically, it is illegal for private employers. The government, or public employers, can actually have comp time. So, people often ask me, "What is comp time?" So, I'm saying, if you stay after two hours today, you can put that time in a bank instead of getting your overtime, and take two hours off in the future. That would be comp time.

Or if you work on Saturday, instead of paying off you, we're gonna add a day to your vacation bank. That would be comp time. It is technically illegal for most employers. Now, why do I keep using the word technically, because a lot of people do it anyway? But know that it's very dangerous. And if you are going to do it, A, make sure people are accruing their time off at time and a half, at the same rate they would have accrued overtime. And, make sure that when they leave your organization, they can get paid out for it, because that is pay that they are entitled to. So, a teeny bit about comp time.

Teeny bit about child labor laws. Again, state law comes into play here. But according to the federal government, any employees...anybody 16 years or older can work. You only have to be 16 years old. The only change is that 16 and 17-year-olds cannot do hazardous work. And hazardous work is not defined in the Fair Labor Standards Act. So, I kind of chuckle, because of all the high school kids working, for example, for Panera Bread. I mean, I think that bagel slicer machine that they use is about as hazardous as anything you're gonna see in any manufacturing environment. But do know that they can work. There's really no other restriction. If you choose to hire a 14 or 15-year-old, there are restrictions on the amount of time that they can work in a school week.

Oh, you know what? Ashley, this is a great time for our next poll. Can people give us a feel for whether or not they're certified in human resources? So, either you're not certified today, you're certified at a generalist level, which is usually a PHR, or a SHRM-CP, or you're certified at the senior level, the SPHR or SHRM-SCP. Because child labor laws are the kinds of things that pop up on those exams. And as we're getting a couple of you to answer in here, we want you to know, at the end of the program, we are gonna give you a SHRM CEU certification number. Those of you that have the HRCI certifications, which are the aPHR, the PHR, or the SPHR, all you have to do is enter the information on the program into HRCI, and you will get the same one hour of credit.

You just go in and say you wanna self-report. Okay. Ashley, do we have a good number of people? Yeah. So, about half of you are not certified. Another 35% at the generalist level. Perfect. And a few at the senior. So, those of you not certified, I'm passionate about HR certification. I'm gonna not take too much time right now about it, but some of you that were very entry-level, there's a new certification called an aPHR, an Associate Professional in Human Resources, that's great for entry-level people. Okay. Shruti, I don't know a lot about the GPHR. I assume this would count for credit for you. Because I don't teach it.

Okay. Timekeeping. One of the things that the Fair Labor Standards Act requires from us is that we keep time records on all employees. So, almost none of you keep time records on your salaried employees. I'm just gonna tell you why that's dangerous. I'm not gonna tell you you have to start doing it. But the issue is that if somebody is classified incorrectly, and you don't have timekeeping records, they are gonna take the employees' word for it, and you are gonna have to pay every hour they say they worked.

I had this happen to me in an organization about 20 years ago. We ended up writing a woman who barely worked 40 hours a week, claim she worked 60, a check for $55,000, because we had no time records to prove that she in fact had only worked when she worked. So it's really advisable to keep time records on all your employees. You must keep your timekeeping records for a minimum of three years. So, that's what you wanna keep. Now, these days, we have them all electronically, mostly. And so, it's really no big deal to just keep them. But you must always have three years' worth of timekeeping records.

People always ask me about paid time off. And how does...? Why is this not moving? There we go. How does paid time off...? And you guys, please put your questions in the Q&A. I am not gonna stop and answer what's in the chat. Or, again, hopefully, Ashley and Kaylee are capturing those. So, we have two things about paid time off. A, there is no legal requirement to give anyone paid time off, except some of you in some states, you do have paid sick time. But at a federal level, you don't have to give it off. Paid time off, for hourly employees, is completely up to you how you would manage the overtime. That's really the only variable that comes into play. But also know, as we're talking about paid time off, and this is a great example here, of this woman with her piñacolada and laptop. I have to tell you, I work like this often. My thighs do not look like that. But other than that, it's a great depiction.

If somebody is working, it doesn't matter if they're off. They must be paid. So, let's talk about exempt-level employees and paid time off. If an exempt-level employee takes one vacation day on a Tuesday, it's fine from a Fair Labor Standards Act concept, because they are still getting a full week's pay. And that's all the law cares about. The law doesn't care about they took four days work and one vacation day. As long as they get their full week's pay, you're good. But what is an issue is if they run out of vacation time, and you say, "We're only gonna pay you for four days." You cannot have them take one day unpaid.

So, you can manage that as a performance issue, as a disciplinary issue. But exempt employees must always be paid for a full week. Okay? And there are no legally-obligated paid time off days. So, you don't have to give people Thanksgiving off, Christmas off, New Year's off, July 4th off. You can have those days where you're closed, and there's just no pay. But exempt employees would have to get the whole week paid. Okay?

Okay. Independent contractors. This is an IRS issue. So, independent contractors are not really part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. But I can't talk to you about all this without bringing it up, because it's so much a part of what we do. So, it's all about the IRS. Somebody who is a temp is not an independent contractor. Okay? So, you need to be really clear with your team internally who is a short-term employee. Somebody who comes in to work for four months, because you just have a project they're gonna work on, doesn't mean they're an independent contractor. They may be an employee, and then they leave, and they become...you know, and then you terminate them. Somebody who is part-time is not necessarily an independent contractor.

And the reason the government cares is because if you have more than 50 employees, they want this person on your benefit plan, not on the Affordable Care Act. They want this person entitled to unemployment and workers' comp. So they look for these things. And what I find is that the time you get caught with somebody who's an independent contractor that should be an employee is when they go file for unemployment benefits. And I see it happen all the time.

So, let me now transition to two things I just want you to be aware of, and then we're gonna take questions, because I see there are a million questions in the Q&A, and that's often part of the most interesting part. So, make sure your employee handbooks have a Safe Harbor Obligation. And I talked about this more and more in the last webinar, which Kaylee...or Kaylee or Ashley did put the link in the chat.

But you need to have a paragraph in your employee handbook that basically says, "We try to do our best when we're paying you, but we may make mistakes. When we make mistakes, it's your obligation to bring those to our attention." Okay? So, you can just google "Safe Harbor FLSA Obligation," and the language comes right up. Or I talk about it more in last month's webinar.

And then, finally, what's on tap for 2023? Well, we thought, in 2022, the government was going to change the salary threshold for exempt employees. Right now, if somebody is exempt, they have to make an annual salary of just under $36,000 a year. That number is going to go up in the future. We just don't know exactly when. It was supposed to go up in October of 2022, and then it didn't. So, I think now they're talking about it coming out in May. We'll just see. But know that that's gonna be the really big change. So, if you have exempt employees right now that are making between $36,000 and $42,000, $43,000, those are the people I'd be looking at, because you may have to switch them to hourly, or raise their salary. Certainly, if that becomes an issue, I know Ashley and I will quickly work together to put something together so that we can get the information out to all of you.

So, let me leave you a little bit with my contact information. I do teach all of the certification prep classes. For those of you who are not currently certified, we had a lot of you, we teach the aPHR, and then the generalist and senior levels. So, I'd love to work with anybody on those. We will send you out some information in the next day or two. We have a bunch of free tools that we send out. And I will make sure that you get all those things in the next couple of days. So, with that, let's see. Let's jump into the questions. Ashley, do you want me to just sort of look, and then...?

Ashley: Yeah, I think I was seeing some themes we can probably tackle [crosstalk 00:42:56] one.

Lori: Okay. Then go ahead. Perfect. Go for it.

Ashley: There were a couple of questions about managing breaks for remote employees. I know you said that was specific, so I don't know if you wanna get into that.

Lori: Yeah. I mean, you know, that's more of a performance issue than a Fair Labor Standards Act issue. So, I think we have some great questions that are directly related. Yeah, I don't [crosstalk 00:43:19]

Ashley: We can just go in order, because there are a lot, and lots of different topics. So, the top one, from Shonda, is there a requirement for [crosstalk 00:43:26]

Lori: You know what? Yeah, let me jump into [crosstalk 00:43:29] because I can see them, and I can... Let me sort of rephrase. So, Shonda's asking about unions. Your union contract will always override, just like state law. There is nobody sitting at a union negotiating table that's gonna let you do something illegal. So, if your union contract says you have to provide a break, then you have to provide a break. I love Kim's question. And Kim, hello. I know you. Hi, Kim. Kim is asking, and this is a great question that I wanna make sure to address... Oh, Shonda, there's no break requirement unless it's in your state, about breaks. So, that's gonna be state law. Okay?

Kim is asking, "Okay, now we found out our accounts receivable clerk has been paid salary, and we wanna move that person to hourly. How do we do it?" So, no, I don't figure back pay. I mean, you try to just navigate the conversation to say, "Look, we've recently audited our records, and we've decided to change your pay going forward. And good news, if you work over 40 hours a week, we're gonna start paying you overtime." Now, one of the things you want to look at is how much overtime they've worked in the past. Generally, it's not that much, and so it's just not that big a deal. The other option is to make this person salaried nonexempt. So say, "We're gonna keep you on the exact same salary, but going forward, we're gonna pay you time and a half."

And that usually works pretty well. Anonymous is saying, "What if my boss doesn't wanna pay unapproved overtime?" Too bad. Too bad. You must pay overtime worked, and then you can discipline the employee. So, you pay the overtime, and then you write them up. And you say, "If it ever happens again, you're out. We're not gonna pay you." Okay, so that's just black and white. So, we're talking... A few people put in the chat... And Amy is asking the question, "Can you require exempt employees to clock in and out?" You could. But typically the way we handle exempt employees, with timekeeping, because you don't wanna treat them as hourly, you don't wanna conflate those two issues, I like to just ask exempt employees to turn in a sheet once a month stating how many hours they worked.

And you can make it really simple. It can be Excel. It doesn't have to be time clocked in, clocked out, but they can say, "I worked 8, 11, 7, 10." And there's no judgment. They're just turning it in to payroll. It also will help you know if, you know, if somebody's overworked. But the other thing to just think about is if you have a lot of positions with risk or not. So, you know, just see. Oh, Joanie's currently in our class, and studying for certification. Yay, Joanie. Dryer... Okay. So, Vanessa's saying, "What if somebody is obligated to check their computer in the morning before they leave, then they drive to work and start working? Is the drive to work compensable?"

So, I am not a lawyer, but I often say I could play one on TV. I would suggest no. Because you must pay them for that 15 minutes that they check their computer. And what I would tell them is that even if it only takes them one minute to check their computer, they're gonna get paid for 15 minutes. So, that's maybe your minimum. Then when they get to work, they start doing their work there. But if that causes them to go over 40 hours, then that would be time and a half. But I don't see where the drive is compensable. I would not. That's a great question, Vanessa.

So, Linda, default schedules for exempt employees, there's no real thing. An exempt employee means they work whenever they need to work. That's the whole idea about being exempt.

Kathy, I kind of feel like I talked about comp time enough, and it doesn't really apply to most people. So I'm gonna skip over that one. Anyone is welcome to email me directly if they have something really specific. So, let's see. I received conflicting advice... Okay. I don't wanna go any more into tracking hours for exempt employees. Some of you may want to talk to your lawyers if you have these kinds of concerns. You know, my recommendation is that you somehow know how many hours people work if there's some question of their status. Do you need to keep hours on your CEO? No. You don't need to keep hours on your head of production. It's an issue if... If you what? Oh, if you have those borderline positions. So, you may have a staff accountant that you're not sure about.

So, let's see. All right. So, everybody's asking about exempt people and PTO. You can only do a full-day deduction under certain criteria. And I have to admit, I do not have that right here in front of me, but it is not my understanding that if they're just out of vacation time, you can deduct a day.

Okay. Can your employer change the number of hours you must submit for PTO, if your work schedule is nine... Your PTO days should just reflect how many hours your normal workday is, but there are no rules around that. Okay. All right. How does exempt employees paid time off for FMLA... So, you can deduct... You can pay people... If they're on FMLA, you don't have to pay them, if they're exempt, if they are an approved FMLA leave.

Melissa, great question. If an exempt employee resigns, the two exceptions to paying them a full work week is whether...their first week of work and their last week of work. So, if somebody starts on a Wednesday, no, you do not have to pay them for that whole week. If somebody leaves, like your example, on a Monday, you don't have to pay for the whole week, if they leave.

Are paid interns covered by overtime FLSA? Absolutely. There is nothing about an intern... They are just a short-term employee. So, if you are paying them, they are paid. They are also entitled to unemployment when they leave your company. Now, most of them go back to college, or go back to something else, which is why they took on an internship, but they don't... But they're treated like every other employee. I am not gonna talk about home health workers. That's a whole different industry. So, you guys have to know that different industries have very specific how they deal with this.

And Melanie's putting something in about Washington state. And so, you know, you have to keep separate what is happening in federal law and what is happening in state and local. Your PTO policy can be whatever you want it to be. So, we have a lot of questions about PTO being half-day or full-day. Okay? That you can make whatever you want. So, Sudha's asking about automatically deducting a 30-minute meal period. Many, many timekeeping systems do that. There's nothing illegal about it, as long as you've notified your employees that that is what you're going to do. Yeah, people are asking about internal billing systems. That has nothing to do with the Fair Labor Standards Act. [inaudible 00:53:27] is non-exempt or not?

Okay. So, Jordan's asking a good question about... And we actually touched on this a little bit already. And that is, if you reclassify somebody with non-exempt, do you have to go back and figure out their overtime? I mean, the issue is you probably don't have records, right? So, I don't know how you would go out and refigure it. But the main thing is to get people classified properly, and have that conversation in a way that makes it not so dangerous.

So, we answered a lot of this. Federal laws on drive time and mileage have nothing to do with the Fair Labor Standards Act. So, well, I guess it does. And we only have about two minutes to go. Okay. Somebody asked if I can put the HR topics slide back up. So, I can certainly do that. And we're gonna send you all these tools. Somebody was asking, because they wanted to be able to grab these tools. So, you're welcome to grab them right now, but we are also gonna send them to you in the next few minutes.

Ashley: Yeah, we'll send you a link to the recording once it processes, probably later this afternoon or even first thing tomorrow morning, so we can pull everything together. And I'm posting the SHRM activity ID in the chat as well, just before we jump off.

Lori: And somebody is putting all these things in about when you can deduct pay. And what I will tell you is, the overwhelming thing it says is it's all based on your company policy. So, what this webinar is about is all about what the Fair Labor Standards Act says. If you have policies, and you've worked with your team, oops, I didn't go to the right slides, sorry about that, you can do all sorts of things. And state and local law, as we have said, changes a number of these things as well.

So, I am gonna put my contact info up one last time. The HRCI, you go on and you self-report. Okay? And that's how you do it. You just say you attended today's webinar, the title of it, and you should be in good shape. So, if you want all these tools for free, you can email this email address. And otherwise, we will get all this out to you in the next day or two. I think, some of you, if you can't find the exact language, I can send that out when we send an email out to you, the safe harbor language. So, look for that either tomorrow or Thursday. We can go ahead and send that out too.

Ashley: Yep. We'll pull all these resources together and make sure you have access to that in the slide with Lori's information. I think that that's it for our time today. So, once again, thank you so much, Lori, and we'll also send out, for our future sessions, we have two more coming up over the next two months. Always a pleasure to have you here. Just a wealth of knowledge. So, I hope everyone has a great rest of their day.

Lori: Bye, everyone. Thanks for joining.

Ashley: Thanks.