2020
- Holidays...To Pay or Not to Pay, What is Required
- EEOC Update on COVID-19
- Protection of Employee Health Information
- Civil Rights Win for LGBTQ Employees
- OSHA Recordkeeping Requirements During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- The Line Between At-Will Termination and Wrongful Termination
- Regulating Firearms in the Workplace
- Social Media Use in Hiring
2019
2018
- What Not to Wear
- Vicarious Liability for Unlawful Harrassment
- Employee Surveillance & Union Formation
- A Lesson in Retaliation
- Employers May Sometimes Judge a Book By Its Cover
- Mind Your P’s and Q’s . . . and BFOQs
- Severance Agreements
- U.S. Department of Labor "Paid" Program
- Revisiting Records Retention
- Calculating the Regular Rate
- Independent Contractor or Employee?
2017
- Sexual Orientation Discrimination
- DRI Membership: It’s Personal
- Is Extended Leave a Reasonable Accommodation?
- Parental Leave
- Pay Disparity
- Religious accomodation in the workplace
- Equal pay and prior salary information
- I quit! How to avoid constructive discharge
- You Can't Shred Email
- Navigating Unemployment Claims
- Considering Criminal History in Pre-Employment Decisions
- Defamation Claims from Former Employees
- Mixed Motive Causation
2016
- Requesting Accomodation: Kowitz v. Trinity Health
- Antitrust Law in Human Resources
- An Evolving Standard: Joint-Employment
- What Does At-Will Employment Mean for Employers?
- Let's Talk About Wages
- THE FLSA: CHANGES ARE COMING
- Follow Up: Obesity and the ADA
- The Importance of Social Media Policies
- Is Obesity a Qualifying Disability under the ADA?
- Retaliation on the Rise: The EEOC Responds
- What Motivates You?
2015
- "But I thought ...
- Who’s expecting? And what is he expecting?
- Are You Still Doing Annual Performance Reviews?
- Who is Your Employee?
- The unpaid intern trap Part II
- “We’ve been the victim of a cyber-attack”
- So, a Hasidic Jew, a nun in a habit and a woman wearing a headscarf walk into your office?
- The unpaid intern trap
- Pregnancy in the workplace
- Let's talk about honesty.
- "Did You Know" Series - Part I
- Conducting an Internal Investigation
- What HR can look forward to in 2015!
2014
- The chokehold of workplace technology
- Does your company have trade secrets?
- North Dakota Construction Law Compendium for 2014
- Does the North Dakota baby boom affect you?
- Ban the Box? Why?
- The end of the world as we know it
- Everybody has an opinion
- Changes, Changes, Changes!
- Nick Grant presents at North Dakota Safety Council's 41st Annual Safety and Health Conference
- Email impairment: A potentially harmful condition
- Are Employers Required to Give Stressed-Out Employees Time Off?
2013
- Can you obtain a credit report when investigating employee wrongdoing?
- Can’t we just sidestep the ACA?
- Should Your Employees Telecommute? Part III
- Should Your Employees Telecommute? Part II
- Should Your Employees Telecommute?
- Proper Investigation of Employee Misconduct
- Battles in the Wellness War
- Rules are rules! Aren’t they?
- What's going on in Bismarck
- A glimpse ahead
2012
- Obesity as a disability under the ADA – reweighing the issue
- What’s next for your business under the Affordable Care Act?
- Criminal Background Checks
- Becoming a lawyer is a process, not an event [Section 5 of 5]
- Congress Says Yes To North Slope Energy Jobs Bill
- Test Your Knowledge of Social Media Policies and Employee Discipline
- Becoming a lawyer is a process, not an event [Section 4 of 5]
- What Every Employer Needs to Know About the NLRA
- Will the 2012 Elections Make A Difference
2011
- Where There's Smoke...
- Dress Code Etiquette: Is Casual Friday Becoming Freaky Friday
- The Next Disaster May Be Yours
- Hostile Work Environment Claims
- North Dakota Employment Law Links
- There's An App For That
- Am I a “Business Associate”? Why Should I Care?
- Do You Recognize a Cat's Paw When You See One?
- Cell Phones Can Cost a Lot, Part II
- Becoming a lawyer is a process, not an event [Section 3 of 5]
- Cell Phones Can Cost a Lot, Part I
- The Economy - What HR Professionals Need To Know
- Becoming a lawyer is a process, not an event [Section 2 of 5]
- Three New Challenges For HR Professionals
2010
Jun 02, 2011
Days after I wrote about overtime claims enabled by use of the ubiquitous smartphone/pda, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) confirmed that employers should be concerned. DOL brought wage calculation into the 21st century by creating and launching its first application for a smartphone. Called DOL – Timesheet, it’s a free download currently compatible only with an iPhone or the iPod Touch. The techies at DOL are working to remedy that limitation. Expect Android and Blackberry applications soon.
What does this little wonder do? Its description on the iTunes says it all:
“This is a timesheet to record the hours that you work and calculate the amount you may be owed by your employer. It also includes overtime pay calculations at a rate of one and one-half times (1.5) the regular rate of pay for all hours you work over 40 in a workweek.”
Well … almost all. The DOL news release dated May 9, 2011 brags:
“This new technology is significant because, instead of relying on their employers' records, workers now can keep their own records. This information could prove invaluable during a Wage and Hour Division investigation when an employer has failed to maintain accurate employment records.”
Will your employees use it for tracking overtime hours enabled (or required, it seems) by carrying their smartphones and pdas everywhere? You bet. One day after the DOL announcement, a post by Molly DiBianco on the Delaware Employment Law Blog enthused that the app’s link from record to email is a helpful feature.
“[I]f an employee sends a series of emails from his iPhone at home, after the end of the normal business day, this may be a helpful way for him to record that time worked and communicate it to his employer.”
If the employer misses the point of these Timesheet emails, the app links to the U.S. DOL Wage and Hour Division including access to instructions about how to lodge a complaint.
Comments in the blogosphere since DOL’s announcement have ranged from the merely cautious to the panic-stricken.
“I cannot overstate the significance of this story [about the release of DOL – Timesheet]. … If you do not know whether your wage and hour practices pass muster under the Fair Labor Standards Act, you are sitting on a bomb waiting to detonate. And, the DOL continues to provide employees with the match to light the fuse,”
complained Jon Hyman in the Ohio Employer’s Law Blog.
WHAT YOU CAN DO.
Mr. Hyman’s comment is true in the sense that, if your business practices are non-compliant with the Fair Labor Standards Act, you are courting disaster. However, whether the enforcement bomb goes off in your workplace is not because of the creation of the DOL – Timesheet app. It is because of your company’s non-compliance. Opinions about DOL’s enforcement tools and practices will fuel many a discussion. Nevertheless, decrying the government’s use of technology to root out labor law non-compliance should not be HR’s primary response. Understanding the law and technology and using this knowledge to help your company maintain a compliant workplace should be.
In my earlier writing on the subject, I gave six steps HR can take right now to protect your company. The DOL announcement may makes it more critical that you consider them. One of these was:
A prima facie claim for unpaid overtime switches the burden to the employer to produce “adequate records” showing that it tracks and pays all working hours appropriately. Review your record-keeping practices and expand them to include reporting of after-hours work by non-exempt employees. Some pda records are easily available. Others are not. Consider how best to track these.
Here’s a radical thought: Why not require use of the DOL – Timesheet app for all of your employees who are authorized (remember, I suggest limiting the number of these) to conduct after-hours work and who are correctly classified as non-exempt? Your company will have records, instead of anecdotal information from your employee, with which to document (and pay for) all claims. This is better than complaining about the march of technology while paying wages, attorneys fees or double damages, isn’t it?
Reprinted with permission from an article submitted for publication in the June 2011 Southwest Area Human Resource Association newsletter.
There's An App For That
By: Paul EbeltoftDays after I wrote about overtime claims enabled by use of the ubiquitous smartphone/pda, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) confirmed that employers should be concerned. DOL brought wage calculation into the 21st century by creating and launching its first application for a smartphone. Called DOL – Timesheet, it’s a free download currently compatible only with an iPhone or the iPod Touch. The techies at DOL are working to remedy that limitation. Expect Android and Blackberry applications soon.
What does this little wonder do? Its description on the iTunes says it all:
“This is a timesheet to record the hours that you work and calculate the amount you may be owed by your employer. It also includes overtime pay calculations at a rate of one and one-half times (1.5) the regular rate of pay for all hours you work over 40 in a workweek.”
Well … almost all. The DOL news release dated May 9, 2011 brags:
“This new technology is significant because, instead of relying on their employers' records, workers now can keep their own records. This information could prove invaluable during a Wage and Hour Division investigation when an employer has failed to maintain accurate employment records.”
Will your employees use it for tracking overtime hours enabled (or required, it seems) by carrying their smartphones and pdas everywhere? You bet. One day after the DOL announcement, a post by Molly DiBianco on the Delaware Employment Law Blog enthused that the app’s link from record to email is a helpful feature.
“[I]f an employee sends a series of emails from his iPhone at home, after the end of the normal business day, this may be a helpful way for him to record that time worked and communicate it to his employer.”
If the employer misses the point of these Timesheet emails, the app links to the U.S. DOL Wage and Hour Division including access to instructions about how to lodge a complaint.
Comments in the blogosphere since DOL’s announcement have ranged from the merely cautious to the panic-stricken.
“I cannot overstate the significance of this story [about the release of DOL – Timesheet]. … If you do not know whether your wage and hour practices pass muster under the Fair Labor Standards Act, you are sitting on a bomb waiting to detonate. And, the DOL continues to provide employees with the match to light the fuse,”
complained Jon Hyman in the Ohio Employer’s Law Blog.
WHAT YOU CAN DO.
Mr. Hyman’s comment is true in the sense that, if your business practices are non-compliant with the Fair Labor Standards Act, you are courting disaster. However, whether the enforcement bomb goes off in your workplace is not because of the creation of the DOL – Timesheet app. It is because of your company’s non-compliance. Opinions about DOL’s enforcement tools and practices will fuel many a discussion. Nevertheless, decrying the government’s use of technology to root out labor law non-compliance should not be HR’s primary response. Understanding the law and technology and using this knowledge to help your company maintain a compliant workplace should be.
In my earlier writing on the subject, I gave six steps HR can take right now to protect your company. The DOL announcement may makes it more critical that you consider them. One of these was:
A prima facie claim for unpaid overtime switches the burden to the employer to produce “adequate records” showing that it tracks and pays all working hours appropriately. Review your record-keeping practices and expand them to include reporting of after-hours work by non-exempt employees. Some pda records are easily available. Others are not. Consider how best to track these.
Here’s a radical thought: Why not require use of the DOL – Timesheet app for all of your employees who are authorized (remember, I suggest limiting the number of these) to conduct after-hours work and who are correctly classified as non-exempt? Your company will have records, instead of anecdotal information from your employee, with which to document (and pay for) all claims. This is better than complaining about the march of technology while paying wages, attorneys fees or double damages, isn’t it?
Reprinted with permission from an article submitted for publication in the June 2011 Southwest Area Human Resource Association newsletter.