Keeping Up on Time and Wage Compliance: Easier than it Sounds

Last week while attending the KronosWorks event in Las Vegas, I heard quite a bit about proposed changes to the Fair Labor and Standards Act (FLSA). This was of special interest to attendees of KronosWorks, who are primarily professionals who deal with changing regulations to time and wage regulations.

Coincidentally, two Second Circuit Court of Appeals rulings came to light during the week – one (Three D, LLC v. NLRB), was on whether “liking” a disparaging or negative comment was acceptable grounds for termination (nope). The other (Davis v. New York City Dep’t of Educ.) was whether discretionary bonus payouts could be considered an “adverse employment action” (yep).

Neither of these cases has a direct effect on time and wage compliance issues, but both are examples of how quickly labor laws can change by way of precedent (as opposed to wholly new legislation). Especially for small and mid-sized businesses, HR professionals have to make very quick decisions based on limited data about complex, often legal-oriented, topics.

In Brandon Hall Group’s 2015 Wage and Labor Law Compliance Survey, there was a question asking respondents about how often they checked to see if their pay policies were still in compliance.

Frequency of Review of Laws and Regulations that Affect How Employees are Paid

Source: 2015 Brandon Hall Group Wage and Compliance Study (n-255)
Source: 2015 Brandon Hall Group Wage and Compliance Study (n-255)

As you can see, 57% of organizations surveyed review new regulations twice a year or less, which might be acceptable in terms of dealing with completely new regulations, especially those as high profile as FLSA, but leaves many organizations quite unprepared to deal with more recent precedents involving common, everyday decisions.

This is not meant to be fearmongering, but rather to note that it is worth taking the time to either set up regular meetings with someone from your legal team to stay apprised of relevant cases, or in the case of smaller companies, to set aside time to review legal precedents through research (on your own or curated) or through online message boards or forums.

It does take some time to get acquainted with terminology and figure out what is relevant news, but after a few weeks it takes no longer than 10 to 15 minutes to review all the significant rulings of that week. Of course, the real work comes about when it’s time to actually change the policy and affect change, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Cliff Stevenson, Principal Analyst, Workforce Management, Brandon Hall Group
@clifforddarrell

Like what you see? Share with a friend.

Mike Cooke

Search

Categories

Stay connected

Get notified for upcoming news subscribing

Related Content

Mike Cooke

Chief Executive Officer of Brandon Hall Group Mike Cooke Prior to joining Brandon Hall Group, Mike Cooke was the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of AC Growth. Mike held leadership and executive positions for the majority of his career, at which he was responsible for steering sales and marketing teams to drive results and profitability. His background includes more than 15 years of experience in sales, marketing, management, and operations in the research, consulting, software and technology industries. Mike has extensive experience in sales, marketing and management having worked for several early high-growth emerging businesses and has implemented technology systems to support various critical sales, finance, marketing and client service functions. He is especially skilled in organizing the sales and service strategy to fully support a company’s growth strategy. The concept of growth was an absolute to Mike and a motivator in starting AC Growth, in order to help organizations achieve research driven results. Most recently, Mike was the VP and General Manager of Field Operations at Bersin & Associates, a global analyst and consulting services firm focused on all areas of enterprise learning, talent management and talent acquisition. Tasked with leading the company’s global expansion, Mike led all sales operations worldwide. During Mike’s tenure, the company has grown into a multi-national firm, conducting business in over 45 countries with over 4,500 multi-national organizations. Mike started his career at MicroVideo Learning Systems in 1992, eventually holding a senior management position and leading all corporate sales before founding Dynamic Minds. Mike was CEO and Co-Founder of Dynamic Minds, a custom developer of software programs, working with clients like Goldman Sachs, Prentice Hall, McGraw Hill and Merrill Lynch. Also, Mike worked for Oddcast, a leading provider of customer experience and marketing solutions, where he held a senior management position leading the company into new markets across various industries. Mike also serves on the Advisory Board for Carbon Solutions America, an independent sustainability consulting and carbon management firm that specializes in the design and implementation of greenhouse reduction and sustainability plans as well as managing the generation of carbon and renewal energy and energy efficiency credits. Mike attended University of Phoenix, studying Business Administration and Finance. He has also completed executive training at the Chicago Graduate School of Business in Chicago, IL.

Resubscribe to our email distribution list.