Our last post raised questions about how to calculate a non-exempt employee's pay under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act for the timeframe during which the employer adopts a different workweek.

When the FLSA workweek is changed, the period in which the conversion occurs typically involves hours worked falling within, or overlapping, both the new and the old workweeks. As an enforcement policy, the U.S. Labor Department will deem FLSA wages to have been paid properly if the employer uses a particular computation method. This approach calls for an employer to:

- Assume that the overlapping hours were worked in only the "old" workweek, compute FLSA straight-time and overtime pay due for each of the workweeks, and then total the sums;

- Perform the same calculation assuming instead that the overlapping hours were worked in the "new" workweek; and

- Pay the employee the greater of the two totals.