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Wages & Hours

Learn from Google’s $118 million pay-equity lesson

06/30/2022
Many employers regularly conduct equity studies to make sure their pay policies don’t discriminate based on gender, race or other protected characteristics. It’s considered a best practice to outsource those studies in order to blunt criticism that an internal review wasn’t thorough or accurate.

New overtime rules due in October, likely raising salary threshold to $50K

06/28/2022
According to the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda, released June 21, the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division plans to float a notice of proposed rulemaking concerning executive, administrative and professional exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime requirements.

Tell bosses: Don’t pester teleworkers after hours

06/24/2022
If you have hourly employees working from home, make sure their supervisors understand their role in preventing surprise wage-and-hour claims.

State, local minimum wages set to increase on July 1

06/24/2022
Be prepared for these changes.

Heed this $42 million wage-and-hour lesson

06/16/2022
If you are a mid-sized to large employer, making even basic wage-and-hour mistakes can be massively expensive. To make matters worse, the Fair Labor Standards Act authorizes courts to double what’s due to punish employers for mistakes. So do most state wage-and-hour laws.

Inflation effect: Employees expect raises of at least 5%

06/14/2022
Money is more valuable than time these days. When the CareerBuilder job-search board surveyed working adults last month, 66% said they would rather receive a 10% pay raise than an additional week of paid time off.

Beware ‘salaries’ that stiff hourly employees

06/02/2022
Most employers comply with the FLSA in a straightforward way by tracking all time worked and calculating each week’s paychecks down to the minute. But every now and then, an employer tries to play fast and loose with the FLSA rules. That usually spells trouble if the Department of Labor finds out.

$5k is a magic salary number

05/26/2022
On average, U.S. employees say a raise of $5,780 would make a difference in their mental and physical health, according to a new survey of 1,100 workers by CouponFollow.

The wage-and-hour risks of rounding time

05/19/2022
The DOL says employers should discourage “major discrepancies” between “clock records and actual hours worked.” In other words, frequent and repeated rounding could call into question the accuracy of an employer’s overall time records. So what’s an employer to do?

Federal contractor? Beware OFCCP audits

05/19/2022
When a company signs a contract to perform work for the federal government, it agrees that the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs can conduct routine audits of its labor practices. Those audits can be far-reaching—and if some form of discrimination is uncovered, the DOL is empowered to bring charges.