Employers have many ways of handling extra hours on the job. Sometimes it is simply part of the job description while in other industries, extra pay for extra work is the norm. But how many of you get comp time – time off for the extra hours on the job?
In my industry, overtime pay is the standard. Our hours are billed to a client, therefore it makes sense that the hours billed matches the hours worked. Otherwise we would never understand how many hours it takes to do a job (I’m still not convinced we do). But recently one company has broken away from the herd and gone to straight salary. The problem is – our project is perpetually understaffed and extra hours are a regular occurrence. So how is this company handling billing – are they still billing the extra hours while only paying for 40? Seems like someone figured out how to squeeze a few extra dollars of profit on the back of the employees. Unfortunately my assistant works for this company and without thinking I had him work this past Saturday.
Normally this is no big deal and has been standard operating procedure for our two years together. Extra hours, extra pay, hooray. But if this new policy is now in place then he isn’t getting paid for those hours! So what am I, the sympathetic supervisor, to do? I think I should offer comp time for that day, provided my superiors are OK with it. It’s only fair given his co-workers are working under different rules. Not to mention the fact that his company suddenly implemented this policy after years of employment. He could look for work elsewhere, but I understand if he would rather stick with the sure thing – the job he already has.
Is comp time part of your employment? Would you rather have the time off, or the extra money?
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12 comments:
Where I worked for 20 years, you couldn't get more money, but you could get time off, which sometimes felt like a better deal.
But when commissioned salespeople get comp time, time is all they get, while they lose income potential.
John DeFlumeri Jr
We occasionally have offered comp time in busy times. It has always gone over really, really well. The extra money is nice, but sometimes just having an extra day off is worth more.
Definitely the day off. Sometimes you just need a week day to go get stuff done or recharge your batteries.
Labor laws very by state but generally dictate that.
If you are salaried you are not entitled to overtime nor comp time. Theoreticallyyou have a bigger salary to compensate for that.
If you are hourly you can have either. I am unaware of any states where they can legally deny an hourly employee overtime pay and force them to take comp time. But no company has to offer comp time.
I prefer the OT pay myself.
Oh and there are also rules that determine what makes a position salaried or hourly. Some of its a little gray though.
I am salaried, and when an OT project comes up I bank my time at straight time. I can get paid out or I can get time off - whichever I prefer.
Regarding what R. May said, it really has nothing to do with whether or not you are salaried or hourly. The distinction comes between exempt and non-exempt employees. To be classified as an exempt employee, you are required to meet certain criteria (2-1/2 times minimum pay being one); you also have to supervise people. If you are exempt, you are not entitled by law to extra pay. If you are non-exempt, then not only are you entitled to overtime (at time and a half) you are also entitled to double time if certain criteria are met (number of days worked in a row, etc.). It does vary by state, but I know that here in California that is the case. In addition, in California employment law, there is no such thing as "comp time." (You can give it ... just don't call it that.) If your employee is non-exempt, however, you MUST pay him overtime.
Do you know if his salary has increased to account for the shift from hourly-with-OT to straight salary? Or no?
Also, and this is a question you may need to think about, is this a precedent you can afford to set? How often will you need him to work overtime with you? If you set a precedent of comp time, you're committing to giving him time off later down the road every time you need him to work overtime. Is your project workload such that you're going to be able to do so, without it having a bad effect on the project? Or without it causing you to have to do some of "his" work during the times that he's out, thus costing the project more (assuming you're billed at a higher rate than he is)?
True Barbara - generally exempt employees are salaried non exempts are hourly. Some exceptions but usually how it falls. I should have been more clear but laziness tends to get me : )
Supervision doesn't always tie into it either.
http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html
@John - I think most people are simply happy to be compensated in some form, time off or extra pay.
@Dawn - alot of people prefer the time off since vacation time is rather limited in the US.
@FB - I could use some time off right now! I'm totally burnt out from this project and losing any will to care. Ugh, just a few more months.
@R May - yeah Im not sure how were classified, we fall into a strange area. I get paid an hourly rate and they would never let me fall below 40 hours unless I wanted to. I get paid for hours worked, but not overtime in the sense of time and a half or double time. I only get straight wage for 20 hours a week or 80 hours a week. I call us salaried hourly workers. It's kinda like lawyers and their billing, they don't charge double time if they work on your case 10 hours a day (of course they also make more in 1 hour than I do in a day!)
@Jessie - that sounds like a cool set up.
@Barbara - like I said above I'm not sure what we are, my helper does get time and half for OT whereas I do not. In our business it depends on whether you are professional or technical staff, as an engineer I am professional staff and as my drafter he is technical. I'm just going to let him have a day off in exchange, we actually did it once before and no one cared. I just don't want him getting screwed cause his company decided to change the rules on him.
@Anon - I don't think he got a boost when they changed to salary, other than they did it at his annual review so he was due for a cost of living or some type of raise anyway. Like I said I think they are trying to squeeze out extra profits, charge for number of hours worked but only pay out for 40. I'm amazed no company did it sooner, we have razor thin margins in this business.
@R May - like I said we must fall in some strange category because before neither of us were true salaried workers yet one of us is entitled to time and half while the other only gets straight time. Fortunately I don't need to know these nuances of employment law, I'm only worried about what is fair to him based on our industry's normal practices.
Every time it's been necessary for me to work overtime, I have preferred to get the extra money rather than taking the extra time off.
I waste most of my days off, but I almost never waste extra money. In a few weeks, I won't remember having the day off, but I will be happy to see that my budget is doing better than ever thanks to overtime pay!
We are allowed comp time at my job, but the only problem is my workload is so full that I don't have time to take off! If I do, I'm that much farther behind. So, I guess I'd much rather have the money. But in the case of your employee getting nothing vs. comp time, he would probably appreciate a day off.
I generally don't need to work more than 40 hours, but we do have flex time -- so if I worked 8 hours saturday, they'd prefer I just take off on Friday or something rather than actually pay me
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