The first question often asked by new employees or job applicants is "what is my rate of pay?" In this economy, more than ever, your response is critical to employees and may be closely scrutinized. For legal and practical reasons, employers should obviously be accurate and careful in responding, especially where various differentials, specialty pay, on-call pay, clinical ladders, special pool rates, bonuses, and other bells and whistles could potentially give rise to legal claims. Setting and tracking the regular rate of pay for non-exempt employees forms the foundation for establishing lawful payroll practices.

Even where employees appear to have a fixed base rate of pay, their "regular rate" for purposes of compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) or any applicable state laws could vary every week. Thus, this issue merits continuing attention.