I see all the time lawsuits filed by employees claiming they filed a wage complaint, and their employer retaliated against them. You have to be very careful if you discipline, transfer, demote, lay off or initiate any other “adverse employment action” against an employee who’s filed a complaint under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

It’s not just formal written FLSA complaints you need to be concerned about, either. Recently, in the case of Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., the U.S. Supreme court held that an employee could sue for retaliation even if the original complaint was only made verbally and never put in writing. It also usually doesn’t matter if the complaint was made to the state or federal Department of Labor or if it was only communicated internally to company management.

The Department of Labor has issued a new Fact Sheet on retaliation that seeks to answer some common questions about the topic. Even if your employees haven’t filed any wage and hour complaints, I urge you to review this Fact Sheet. It won’t take much time — it’s short, sweet and to the point. And the information in there is incredibly important to know.

Here are a few ideas to help you protect yourself against charges of retaliation:

• Fully document every adverse employment action, including the reasons why the action was taken. (And — it goes without saying — don’t retaliate. You’re on much firmer ground if the real reason for the adverse action isn’t to take revenge for the employee filing a complaint.)
• Be consistent in your treatment of employees. When one employee commits an infraction and gets away with a slap on the wrist, but another who does a similar thing gets fired, you’re asking for a lawsuit. Especially if the one who gets fired has previously complained about a wage and hour issue.
• If questioned about why a particular employment action was taken, keep your answers short and consistent. When your reasons change from one telling of the story to the next, it starts to look suspiciously like the “reasons” are merely pretext. Depending on who’s asking and under what circumstances, it may be better to let your attorney do the answering for you.
• When in doubt, consult your employment law advisor before you take any action.

Have you ever been tempted to take revenge on an employee who complained? Or have you been the victim of retaliation?

Not too long ago, I came across a statistic that the average company holds on to its time and attendance solution for seven to 10 years. That’s a long time, especially considering all the recent advances in time tracking technology. Try to remember what personal computers were like 10 years ago, compared with their capabilities today. Well, the advances over the past decade in time and attendance tracking are similarly dramatic.

If you’re still using an older time tracking system, your business could be losing out on the advantages offered by a modern timekeeping solution. It may be time to take steps toward an upgrade.

No Time Like The Present

If you’ve had your current solution for more than a few years, December is a terrific time to re-evaluate your system. Take a look at what time and attendance systems can offer these days. Find out if these newer systems offer capabilities you don’t have now, or more secure data entry terminals, or any other enhanced features you could use.

For instance, if you’re concerned about “buddy punching,” you can get a snazzy biometric time and attendance system for less than $600. Use our Savings Calculator to see just how quickly time theft adds up — and find out how much you can save simply by being sure employees are physically present when they clock in or out.

Or let’s say to help morale and promote work/life balance, you now allow your employees the option of telecommuting. You still need to record time for overtime-eligible employees (including salaried non-exempt workers). You may want to consider upgrading to our online time clock, AcroTime. Your employees can safely and securely clock in and out, no matter where they’re working. All they need is Internet access and a browser.

Do your research now. Know what you need, and how it will benefit your business. When January rolls around to begin a new year (and for those of us who operate on a calendar fiscal year, a new budget) you’ll be ready to take advantage of the opportunity.

Best of all, depending on what sort of time tracking you’re using now, an upgraded system could pay for itself in as little as a few months! And that would make a pretty good way to start off the new year, don’t you think?

On Sunday, November 6, at 2:00am, most of us here in the U.S. are supposed to turn our clocks back by one hour. While resetting all our clocks could be an inconvenience at home, it can raise some additional interesting issues at work.

For instance, what about people who work a shift that spans the time change?

Overnight Shifts

The law requires us to pay employees for the number of hours they actually work. This can raise some interesting issues when the clocks change in the spring and fall.

An couple of examples might help:

Spring

The employee arrives for work at midnight and clocks in. At 2:00am, the clocks instantly jump forward to 3:00am. While it appears an hour has passed, no time has actually elapsed. The employee’s shift ends at 8:00am. While a comparison of start and end times would make it appear they’d worked eight hours, in fact, one hour was lost when the clocks were set forward, so the employee really only worked seven hours. You are only obligated to pay them for the seven hours they actually worked.

Fall

The employee arrives for work at midnight and clocks in. At 2:00am, the clocks are set back to show 1:00am. In other words, the clocks count off the hour between 1:00am and 2:00am twice. The employee’s shift ends at 8:00am. While a comparison of start and end times would make it appear they’d worked eight hours, in fact, the clocks undercounted their time by one hour because of being set back. The employee is entitled to pay for nine hours.

Note that if that extra hour puts them over 40 hours in that work week, they’re due overtime at time-and-a-half. (In some states, they’re due overtime for working over eight hours in one day, regardless of how many hours they worked in the week.)

No Time-Shifting

Note that you can’t “average” the time and pay eight hours in both spring and fall. The law says you have to pay hourly employees for the actual hours they work. If you want to be generous, you can pay them for eight hours in the spring, but you’ll still be on the hook for nine hours (and possible overtime) in the fall.

DST Instructions Available

If you need help resetting your Acroprint time clock for Daylight Saving Time, we have print-friendly instructions available free on our website. Click here to find the DST instructions for your clock.

Tired of making Daylight Saving Time adjustments? Take a look at our AcroTime online time clock. Since it’s all online, it automatically adjusts for the spring and fall DST changes without any intervention on your part. Sweet!

If you have any of the following products, you can download a free update from our Support site:

• Attendance Rx or Attendance Rx Network software
• ATRx ProxTime
• ATRx Secure PunchIn
• ATRx Biometric 1000
• timeQplus Biometric (v2)
• timeQplus v3 software
• timeQplus v3 Proximity
• timeQplus v3 Biometric

This new release offers a number of fixes and enhancements. Click on your product name above to jump to the product support page where you can download the update file.

I’m a glass half full kind of guy. Always have been, hopefully always will be. So it bothers me that so many people look at time & attendance systems as a way for “the man” to control his/her subordinates.

Obviously to some extent that can be true, but I think management should try to view it from a different perspective.

If I’m management and I’m pouring over my employee’s time sheets on a weekly basis, I’m admittedly looking for the discrepancies. Who came in late, who left early, who took a ridiculously long lunch? (And if it was a group outing… where was my invite?)

But over the long run I’m paying more attention to the trends. Who are my true workhorses? Who is consistently here on time, all day, every day, ready to rock? I’m scouting out Mr. & Ms. Dependable. Quite simply my time & attendance system not only lets me know who might be in line for some disciplinary action, but even more importantly it helps me decide who deserves to be rewarded.

My best workers are the backbone of my company. And if I don’t take care of them, and acknowledge their efforts, soon enough they’ll find a new job where somebody will. Or even worse they’ll become disillusioned and stay on my payroll, stop putting in the extra effort and start riding the clock.

Employees need to perceive there’s a reward for their hard work, just as much as they believe there’s a consequence for the lack of it. If not the work culture and therefore the company will suffer.

You hear a lot these days about the demise of company loyalty. Employees are supposedly ready to “jump ship” at the drop of a hat. We’re told they’re just biding their time, waiting for a better opportunity to come along.

To help us here at Acroprint keep track of important company events, employee birthdays and employee anniversary dates, we publish a monthly calendar.

Recently, I was looking over our company calendar for the month of July and I noticed something interesting.

I saw there were seven employees with hiring anniversary dates in July. Among those seven, the “newcomer” started with us 11 years ago. At the other end of the spectrum, one in the group has been here for 32 years! All told, these seven employees have worked here for 133 years, or about 19 years each on average.

I think that says a lot about Acroprint as a company. Even in today’s fast-paced, mobile, here-today-gone-tomorrow world, our employees tend to stick around.

I think it has to do with three main factors:

• The company treats us well.
• We’re serious about the quality of our work, but we still manage to have fun doing it.
• We’re working for a company we can believe in, making and selling products we can be proud of.

What do you think? If you’re an employee, would you want to keep working for your current employer for 32 years? If you’re an employer, how many of your employees do you think would stay with you that long? What do you think are the main factors influencing an employee’s decision to stay or leave?

The issue of “donning and doffing” has been in the news again lately, thanks to the case of Perez v. Moutainaire Farms, Inc. right here in North Carolina.

Donning and doffing refers to the action of putting on or taking off protective gear, uniforms, etc. that are required for the job and kept at the workplace. Employees have to change into or out of the special gear after they arrive at your site, but before they can actually start work. It’s a common practice at locations such as nuclear power plants, steel refineries or poultry / meat processing facilities.

The Question Is…

…Should you have to pay employees for time they spend getting ready for work? It turns out that depends on what they’re doing and where you’re located. Here’s a sampling of rulings from various Federal Appeals Courts up and down the east coast:

• In the case of Gormon v. Consolidated Edison Corp., the Second Circuit (CT, NY, VT) ruled nuclear power plant employees were not entitled to pay for donning and doffing their protective gear and going through security because the activities were “relatively effortless.”
• On the other hand, in Tyson Foods Inc. v. De Ascencio, the Third Circuit (DE, NJ, PA) decided poultry plant employees should be paid for time spend donning and doffing protective gear.
• Putting a slight twist on the situation, in Perez v. Mountaire Farms, Inc., the Fourth Circuit (MD, NC, SC, VA, WV) said time spent donning and doffing protective gear at the beginning and end of the workday is compensable time… but time spent donning and doffing the same gear when employees take meal breaks is not.
• However, in Anderson v. Cagle’s Inc., the Eleventh Circuit (AL, FL, GA) ruled union poultry plant employees were not entitled to pay for time spent donning and doffing because of provisions in their collective bargaining agreement.

Big Potential Liability, But How Much?

Of particular note, in Perez v. Moutainaire Farms, Inc., the company’s expert calculated the time spend donning and doffing at around 10 minutes per day. Meanwhile, the plaintiff employees said the time was closer to 21 minutes per day. (Bit of a difference there!)

Since there were no actual time records to rely on, the judge split the difference and estimated the time at 17 minutes per day. Two years equals about 500 workdays. At 17 minutes per day, that works out to around 142 hours — just under 18 days — of unpaid time per employee. When you consider that at least some of this time will likely have to be paid at time and a half overtime, you can get an idea of the potential exposure you might face in a similar situation.

The Bottom Line

If a donning and doffing issue might apply to you:

1. Consult with your employment law attorney to make sure your pay practices are in compliance with the latest rulings in your jurisdiction. Be sure to factor in the amount of time and effort it takes for employees to put on or take off the gear — the harder it is or the longer it takes, the more likely it is the time should be paid.
2. Even if you and your lawyer decide you aren’t required (at least for now) to pay employees for donning and doffing time, track that time anyway. You never know when a new court case might change the criteria, or when you might find yourself in court having to justify your decision. You want to make sure any decisions or calculations the court might make are based on actual time records, not somebody’s “best guess.”

If you aren’t happy with your current time clock, or you don’t have a time and attendance solution in place, look to Acroprint for a complete line of traditional punch clocks, time tracking software and even an online time clock that lets you track employee time over the web.

There are already plenty of good reasons why every prudent company should keep accurate time and attendance records. For one, it’s the law. As I’ve noted before, accurate records can protect your company from a number of risks. And without accurate time records, it’s impossible to pay your overtime-eligible employees correctly.

As of May 9, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division has added yet another reason, with the launch of a free smartphone application designed to help employees easily track their own work hours and calculate their own pay.

With the DOL-Timesheet app, users can track work hours, breaks and overtime for one or more employers. The app will also calculate pay so employees can easily compare against their actual pay stub.

Employers should take note the DOL announcement also says the information tracked by this app “could prove invaluable during a Wage and Hour investigation when an employer has failed to maintain accurate employment records.” In other words, if you don’t have good records, they’ll use the records your employees have maintained instead to calculate how much back pay you may owe.

DOL-Timesheet is currently available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch in both English and Spanish. According to the announcement, the DOL is exploring the possibility of creating a similar app for other smartphone platforms such as Blackberry and Android. They’re also looking at adding more pay features, such as tracking for tips, commissions, holiday pay, shift differentials and more.

Think you might be off the hook because most of your employees don’t have smartphones? The DOL also offers a PDF-format, downloadable printable Work Hours Calendar in both English and Spanish. Employees can use these worksheets to easily track their arrival and departure times, when they actually start and stop working, and their meals and other breaks. Each calendar also contains information about wage and hour law and how to contact the Wage and Hour Division to ask a question or file a complaint.

Now, more than ever, it’s important to make sure your time and attendance tracking solution is accurate, your employees are using it properly to record their time, and their time is being compensated properly.

You may have noticed there are plenty of people on the Internet dispensing free advice on just about any topic you could imagine. Time and attendance is no exception. A big problem, of course, is that often you get what you pay for. Even worse, if you follow this bad time and attendance advice, it could end up costing you a lot of money.

Unfortunately, just because someone sounds authoritative, that doesn’t mean they have any idea what they’re talking about. Recently, I’ve come across several examples of people masquerading as “experts” but handing out perfectly terrible advice.

But We Have Great Employees!

Bad Advice: One site claimed you don’t need to track employee time if you think your employees are already punctual. According to this article, it’s only companies that have a problem with tardiness or absenteeism that need time and attendance. Profitable companies with hardworking employees don’t need to track time!

The Straight Scoop: Unless you have your employees clock in and out (or you’re willing to spend all day monitoring all your entrances and exits), how do you know all your employees are on time for all arrivals, departures and breaks? In one study a few years ago, 60% of responding companies said their employees were not accurately reporting their time or the company simply didn’t know if the time reported was accurate. That’s a scary statistic!

All it takes is your good employees seeing one bad apple getting away with regularly arriving late, taking long breaks or leaving early — and you’ve got a potential employee morale problem on your hands. (Not to mention that you’re paying for time that person isn’t working.) Time and attendance tracking isn’t just for companies that have a problem. It’s for companies that want to prevent problems.

How About If Your Employees Work From Home?

Bad Advice: In the same article, the author said companies don’t need to monitor hours for employees who telecommute.

The Straight Scoop: Yikes! This one’s so bad I almost don’t know where to begin. If you have overtime-eligible employees working remotely, you still have the same legal obligation to pay them for overtime as if they were on a standard nine-to-five in your office. Unless you track their time, you could find yourself staring down both barrels of a Department of Labor wage and hour audit, or (worse) a class-action lawsuit. That’s one expensive lesson you don’t want to learn the hard way!

Fortunately, online time sheets such as AcroTime allow your employees to clock in and out over the web from anywhere they have Internet access, or even over the telephone. No more excuses for not tracking time for people working outside the office!

But We’re Tough Disciplinarians!

Bad Advice: Another article I found stated companies with strict time and attendance rules don’t need to track employee time. The author’s reasoning was that employees would be so scared of getting disciplined or fired for infractions they wouldn’t dare come in late or leave early.

The Straight Scoop: This is just plain wrong on so many levels! Most obviously, the idea that scaring employees to death will make them toe the line is not only ludicrous, it’s a sure-fire path to high turnover and low morale.

Besides, if you discipline one employee because you happen to notice him arriving late, but let another one get away with it simply because she’s better at sneaking by you, not only is that unfair, but you’re opening yourself up to a possible lawsuit. Prudent employers make sure to thoroughly document the reasons for any disciplinary action to avoid charges of discrimination, harassment or retaliation. If you’re disciplining or terminating an employee for tardiness or absenteeism, you need reliable time and attendance records to back up your claims. Accurate time tracking for all employees helps ensure policy enforcement is fair and even-handed and can keep you out of legal hot water.

Milestones Versus Time Worked

Bad Advice: In this second article, the author also said if your company assesses employee performance based on hitting milestones or achieving goals, you don’t need to track the time they spend working to attain those goals.

The Straight Scoop: It’s true some companies, such as Best Buy, have implemented performance-based programs that allow employees flexibility in scheduling hours and work location. Their performance is judged not by punctuality or how many hours they work, but how well they attained their goals or met specified performance standards. And you may have read articles in the media claiming these companies have “thrown away their time clocks.”

However, note these types of programs address how the companies assess employee performance, not how they calculate payroll. The fact is, you can assess performance using whatever criteria you want, but federal law still requires overtime pay for non-exempt and hourly employees who work more than 40 hours a week. The law also requires you to keep accurate time records in support of your payroll. If you’re not tracking time, how can you prove your payroll is accurate in the event of an audit or lawsuit?

These companies haven’t really thrown away their time clocks. At least, not if they’re smart! No matter what criteria they use to measure performance, I’m sure they still track work time for overtime-eligible employees, whatever those hours might be, and where ever they’re worked.

The REAL Experts

Fortunately, Acroprint has been in the time and attendance business since 1969. We know time and attendance! We offer a variety of time-tracking options — from traditional punch clocks to sophisticated online time clocks — that can work for you, no matter when or where your employees work. All of our time tracking solutions can reduce your legal exposure and save you time and money on payroll preparation. Give us a call or visit our website for more information about which option is best for you.

In a recent newsletter article (Are You Getting the Most from Your Time and Attendance System), I mentioned several alternative uses for a time and attendance system, beyond simply tracking employee time.  We looked at ways time and attendance data could help enhance revenue, improve business processes and control costs.

For instance, there’s the story of the day care system that issued a badge to each child they cared for. When the children arrived in the classroom, they’d clock themselves in, and when their parents came to pick them up later, they’d clock themselves out. The day care center then used the time reports to generate invoices for the parents for the number of hours of care provided each week.

The center director estimated they were generating $1,000 in additional revenue each week because of more accurate billing, which is nothing to sneeze at.

You know, I thought that was pretty darned cool.

Besides that, I mentioned some other instances of creative uses we’ve heard about over the years from our customers.

But researching the topic really got me curious. I’m sure we’ve only scratched the surface of ways time and attendance technology can be adapted to meet all sorts of business and organizational needs.

So, my talented, intelligent and perceptive readers, here’s your chance to shine. Can you think of any clever new ways an organization might be able to put to use a time and attendance solution — either a punch clock or a software-based system? Is your organization doing something out of the box with your system?

I’d love to hear your stories and ideas. Post them in the comments below, or if you’re feeling a little shy, send me an email. (It’s safe — I seldom bite! )