Does Your Comp Time Policy Violate Labor Laws?

Does Your Comp Time Policy Violate Labor Laws? 

Whether you are an employer or an employee, how do you define “Comp Time”? 

There are three things to be aware of in considering the company’s time policy. 

Defining Comp Time. An employee is entitled to overtime unless her position and duties fall into specific exemptions. If not, the employee classifies as a non-exempt employee and is entitled to overtime for every hour over 40 they work in a given work week. 

If you are an employer is important to know thar overtime is not calculated based on your payroll period, but on a work week. Most companies have 2 weeks payroll periods, so if an employee works 50 hours on week one of the payroll period, but only 30 hours on week two, the employer would pay the employee for 70 hours of work at the employee’s regular rate and 10 hours of overtime. Even though the employee worked a total of 80 hours during the payroll period. 

Now let’s say that employee instead worked over 40 hours a week and “bang” the extra hours future absences. This Comp Time policy likely violates overtime laws. 

Two other scenarios commonly refer to as “Comp Time” are compressed work weeks and flex time. 

A Compressed Work Week is where a non-exempt employee works four 10 hours days in a work week and takes the next three days off. In this case an employer not paying overtime doesn’t violate federal overtime law, since the employee didn’t work more than 40 hours that work week. 

And the third definition of Comp Time is Flex Time. Where an employee works different hours than the normal work day to accommodate personal obligations or disability. As long as the employee is paid overtime for every hour they work over 40 in the work week, Flex Time is unlikely to violate overtime laws.