Many areas of the country are just drying out from the effects of Hurricane Ike and other nasty storms — and companies are trying to deal with payroll headaches from lost work records to whether they must continue to pay workers when the organization is temporarily shut down.

John Thompson of the employment law firm Fisher & Phillips recently posted some guidance to these thorny FLSA issues. Some highlights of the answers he provides to common questions:

What do we do about lost time records for work already performed but not yet paid?

There’s really no choice but to try to have each employee give his or her best estimate of the hours worked, if your records are truly lost or so badly damaged as to be unusable. Get the employee’s written acknowledgement of his or her best recollection, and include a notice that later corrections in pay might occur should more accurate records become available, advises Thompson.

How do we track employees’ worktime without our electronic/computerized time clocks?

The old-fashioned way: on paper. Each employee should fill out a handwritten timesheet indicating start times, lunch periods and when their workday ends. Supervisors will likely carry the extra burden of making sure the timesheets are filled out accurately.

As we recover, must we keep paying overtime on top of our other burdens?

‘Fraid so. There’s no exemption to the FLSA’s requirement that all overtime must be paid — although there could be a clause in a collective bargaining agreement that might ease your burden temporarily. But Thompson points out that a collective bargaining agreement can’t override FLSA requirements.

Must we keep paying employees who are not working?

Here’s what Thompson has to say: Under the FLSA, for the most part the answer is “no.”  FLSA minimum-wage and overtime requirements attach to hours worked, so employees who are not working are typically not entitled to a paycheck.

One possible exception is for employees treated as FLSA-exempt who are paid on a “salary basis.”  Generally speaking, if such an employee performs at least some work in the designated seven-day workweek, the rules require that he or she be paid the entire salary for that particular workweek.

 

Resources
Post Your Resume to 65+ Job Sites
Resume Service

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post