Expert: Shirley McAllister, CPP, PHR - 5/8/2009

Question
QUESTION: I am the accountant for a company in Louisville, Kentucky.  Kentucky has a statute requiring employees to be paid 18 days after the beginning of the pay period.  The problem we are having is employees not clocking in and out as they are required to do under our policy and expecting to be paid on payday for those hours that we do not have a record.

Are we required to pay them at that time or can we tell them they will have to wait another two weeks because they did not follow company policy?

I've tried contacting the state labor board about this and have never gotten an answer.

ANSWER: The government says that you must pay the employee even if you have no time card. They have put the burden on the employer to know when their employees are working. You cannot hold their paycheck for two weeks.

I suggest that you write a policy up that states any punches on a timesheet causing a missing day will be paid 8 hours at minimum wage. Give a copy of it to all the employees and have them sign for it.

The law only says that you are legally responsible to pay at least minimum wage to all employees. You are following the law.

You will find that employee either check in and out or make a point of getting the missed punch corrected before payday.

Shirley

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: We are not holding their paychecks for two weeks.  We are paying them for the time that we have a record of hours worked.  What we are telling them is that we cannot pay them for those hours where there is not a record and that they will have to wait until the following paycheck to be paid for those hours.

In most of the cases we run in to are instances where the employee has not clocked in or out for their entire shift.

ANSWER: You could be in violation of the FLSA for doing this. The employee only needs to file a claim with the Department of Labor and you will be investigated. It is illegal not to pay them for the day even if they do not check in and out. The supervisor and other co workers know they worked, so they can prove to the labor board they were there.

Shirley

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: We have had employees fired for clocking in their fellow employees who were not showing up for work.  That is part of the reason we switched from a paper time card to a digital time card.
And we have had instances where coworkers and supervisors were covering for their friends.

Answer
This is committing fraud and stealing from the company.

Put out a policy and have every employee sign it that if anyone is caught signing in for another employee that person can be terminated no exceptions.  Not only do we have such a policy, we have terminated employees for checking in other employees. We busted a supervisor, cut his pay and put him back on the phones in the call center for checking his employees in and out and told him if he did it ever again he was terminated.

Shirley