An employer realizes that too many employees have reported for work on what is obviously going to be a slow day for business. Just send home the extra employees, right? Yes, but not without considering the consequences.

In California, the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) determined that non-exempt employees who report to the workplace expecting to work a certain number of hours but who are deprived of that amount of work by the employer should be guaranteed at least some compensation for their efforts. The IWC Wage Orders require that employers must pay such employees for both the hours the employee actually works and for certain unworked but regularly scheduled time known as “reporting time pay.” The basic requirements for reporting time pay are that for each workday that an employee is required to report to work, but is not put to work or is sent home after performing less than half of his or her scheduled day’s work, the employee must be paid for half the scheduled day’s work in an amount of not less than two, nor more than four hours, at his or her regular rate of pay. Thus, if an employee scheduled for an eight-hour shift only works for two hours, the employer must pay the employee four hours of pay at his or her regular rate of pay (in this case, for the two hours worked, and two more as reporting time pay). However, since reporting time pay is not counted as hours worked for purposes of determining overtime, only the two hours worked will count as actual hours worked.