Home Depot Adopts New Policy on How It Pays Employees Following Lawsuit

Home Depot It has changed its policy on how it calculates employee salaries. Instead of rounding off the time employees spend at work, it will instead calculate based upon the actual hours worked. “nearest minute” Workers spend it.

“Our policy has been to round total shift time up or down to the nearest 15 minutes, which has been a common industry practice for many years,” Sara Gorman is a Home Depot spokeswoman Submitted Business Insider. “As laws, technology, and workplace practices continue to evolve, we’re changing our practice nationwide effective January 16, 2023, to pay hourly associates to the nearest minute based on exact time punches.”

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows timesheet rounding. This is the practice of rounding up or reducing the time that employees put in.

Some industries, especially where time clocks are used, round up their employees’ starting and ending time to the nearest five minutes or to the nearest tenth or quarter of an hour.

This arrangement “presumably” According to averages, employees get fully compensated for their actual work time. FLSA.

The rule states that rounding practices are only acceptable if they do not lead to a failure to pay employees for their time.

Compensation Lawsuit

Home Depot’s decision comes after it faced lawsuits from employees who criticized the company’s rounding practices. In one class action lawsuit, plaintiffs argued that Home Depot’s rounding practice had resulted in failure to pay wages.

Home Depot argued that the rounding policies were neutral during the trial. The court agreed and stated that the system was designed to ensure that employees are properly compensated for their work over time.

The case was appealed by the plaintiffs and the Sixth District California Court of Appeal reversed it in October 2022 Statement That “if an employer, as in this case, can capture and has captured the exact amount of time an employee has worked during a shift, the employer must pay the employee for ‘all the time’ worked.”

The appeals court observed, however, that there is no a “complete absence of language” in California’s Labor Code or applicable wage order that allows for rounding off time that results in an underpayment of employees.

Home Depot claimed that the rounding policy made generate more money easier. “verifiable wage statements” Pay stubs that are “easier for employees to decipher.”

This argument was also rejected by the court, who stated that “Home Depot cites no provision in California law that privileges arithmetic simplicity over paying employees for all time worked.”

Timesheet Rules

All states in the United States are required to follow certain common rules concerning the time tracking of hourly workers.

Timesheet records should always clearly show the date and time an employee started and ended work along with the number of work hours per day and week.

Employers cannot force employees to work overtime. This is illegal. This is illegal. An employee who is subject to such requirements can sue the Department of Labor for unpaid wages.

Hourly employees must be compensated for all hours they work. Though employers are allowed to alter a worker’s time card without the person’s knowledge, the business has to ensure that the employee is paid for all the hours worked.

Naveen Athrappully, a news reporter at The Epoch Times, covers business and global events.