Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement with Hilton Reservations Worldwide, LLC, in which the company agreed to pay $715,507 in minimum wages and overtime pay to 2,645 current and former customer service employees in Texas, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The DOL determined after an audit that the company failed to pay workers for pre-shift activities such as booting up their computers, launching necessary programs, and reading work-related e-mails.

This settlement reflects what appears to be an ongoing focus by the DOL on call center operations, aimed specifically at the issue of pre-and post-shift activities by call center employees. However, the issue of pre-and post-shift activities is by no means limited to call centers. While activities such as booting up a computer may represent only a few minutes of an employee's day, over time they can add up to a significant amount of additional work time. Particularly if an employee has an older machine and is required to start multiple, slow-launching applications before starting work, these minutes can add up.