Q&A

When computing employee pay, are we allowed to round off employee working hours?

06/20/2012

Q. My company uses a time clock to track the hours of nonexempt employees. When we determine the wages to be paid to employees, can we round up or down to the nearest five-minute increment?

Can we give comp time instead of overtime pay?

06/20/2012

Q. Things are still tight, but our company is picking up. We’d like to have our employees work extra hours in exchange for extra time off when we finally can hire more staff. Can we do this?

How can we legally cut all salaries by 10%?

06/14/2012

Q. We need to cut our payroll costs. Is there any reason we can’t cut everyone by 10%? All our employees are at-will.

Unmarried parents: Can they take FMLA together?

06/05/2012

Q. Two of our employees live together but are not married. They want to take FMLA leave at the same time after their child is born. Since they work in the same section, doing similar work, this would be a big problem. If they were married, we could make them share the 12 weeks. Can we force them to do the same even if they aren’t married?

Can we require employees to use direct deposit?

05/30/2012

Q. Can a Texas employer require employees to accept payment of wages through an electronic transfer of funds?

Encouraging healthy staff: How far can we go?

05/30/2012

Q. Some of our employees are quite heavy. We’re concerned they may become a liability at insurance renewal time because we suspect they have health problems (they also smoke and eat junk food). Can we ban smoking near our premises and make the workplace a snack-free zone?

NLRB union poster on hold: Can we still post it?

05/29/2012

Q. We had the NLRB union-rights notice laminated and it is ready to be posted in our break room. Now the deadline is off. Can we still display it?

Facing an EEOC claim: Can we ‘stall’ it to death?

05/28/2012

Q. How is it possible to get out of an EEOC discrimination complaint if the employee has tape recordings to prove the claim? Can we prolong the process so the time can run out or is there no time limit in how long the EEOC waits for a position statement from us?

Is it OK for managers to adjust timecards?

05/24/2012

Q. Our employees punch a time clock and then go to job sites. Sometimes they don’t take a lunch break. But when they do, they’re unable to clock out and back in, so there’s no time record. Can a manager adjust the timecard by marking through the daily total and deducting the lunch time?

What recourse do we have if employee repeatedly misses work on Mondays?