California Employment News: Time to Do Away With Rounding Policies
On April 18, 2024, a jury in Seattle, Washington, determined that a not-for-profit hospital system employer would be required to pay nearly $100 million for time clock rounding and meal period violations, raising concerns for...more
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) mandates that employers compensate employees for each hour worked. Nonetheless, the Department of Labor guidance permits rounding of employee time punches so long as, among other things,...more
In the Broadway musical Pajama Game, based on the 1953 novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell, employees at the aptly named Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory want a pay increase of 7½ cents per hour. (Like I said, the novel was written...more
For decades, the Department of Labor (DOL) has recognized the impracticability of requiring Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) nonexempt employees to clock in exactly at the beginning of their scheduled shifts. In most...more
Kuciemba v. Victory Woodworks Inc., 14 Cal. 4th 993 (2023)... Adolph v. Uber Technologies Inc., 14 Cal. 5th 1104 (2023)... Woodworth v. Loma Linda University Medical Center, No. E072704, 2023 WL 4701976 (Cal. Ct. App. July...more
For decades, many employers have rounded non-exempt employees’ work time when calculating their compensation. Maybe they have rounded employee work time to the nearest 10 minutes, maybe to the nearest quarter hour, but they...more
The California Court of Appeal issued a blow to employers this week by taking yet another step toward eliminating their ability to round employee time punches. Although the California Supreme Court will ultimately weigh in,...more
As we wrote about previously here, in October 2022, the Sixth District of the California Court of Appeal in Camp v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 84 Cal.App.5th 638 (2022), ignored a decade of precedent and found Home Depot’s...more
A number of recent case law and regulatory updates—at both the state and federal levels—carry important implications for California employers in the upcoming year....more
Recent case law has brought time rounding policies into question. In this episode of California Employment News, Meagan Bainbridge and Katie Collins review the California Court of Appeal’s recent ruling in Camp v. Home Depot,...more
Leave it to California courts to deliver another setback to employers right before the holidays. Near decade-old rounding rules were just dealt a hearty blow. Employers should immediately reconsider rounding policies....more
Rounding is the practice of capturing time entries on a time clock and converting them to the closest five, ten, or fifteen minute equivalent. For example, both entries at 8:58 and 9:04 may be converted to 9:00 a.m. A recent...more
An employer’s quarter-hour rounding policy did not comply with California law because the company could and did track the exact time in minutes that employees worked each shift—but did not pay them for it, according to a...more
This week, the California Court of Appeal effectively shut the door on rounding time records in California. In Camp v. Home Depot, the court held that the employer’s facially neutral rounding policy violated California law by...more
Over the past decade, California employers have reasonably relied on consistent rulings from courts as well as state and federal administrative agencies upholding the validity of time rounding systems as long as they are...more
The Sixth District California Court of Appeal held that despite evidence of neutrality of a rounding policy, the employer did not meet its burden of proof to show employees were properly compensated for all hours worked....more
In California, it has long been the rule that an employer is entitled to use a rounding policy “if the rounding policy is fair and neutral on its face and ‘it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of...more
On October 24, 2022, the Sixth District issued a decision in in Camp v. Home Depot, handing employees a major win in the wage and hour arena by holding that Home Depot’s practice of rounding hourly employees’ total daily...more
The California Court of Appeal issued a decision this week that could spell the end of time rounding in California. In Camp v. Home Depot U.S.A. Inc., No. H049033, 2022 WL 13874360 (Oct. 24, 2022), the court held that, where...more
In 2021, the California Supreme Court handed down two important decisions, Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC and Ferra v. Loews Hollywood, LLC, that reinforce and refine tried and true lessons about meal and rest breaks. As...more
As technology has advanced, employers routinely rely on electronic timekeeping software to ensure accurate record keeping. Such software often includes a setting to round employees’ time (typically to the nearest quarter...more
Independent contractors, meal periods, and PAGA. The first quarter of 2021 yielded some key rulings from the California appellate courts on independent contractor classification, meal-period rounding, and arbitration of...more
For the past decade, many California employers have lawfully used neutral rounding systems to compensate employees. Rounding is the practice of adjusting an employees’ recorded time worked to the nearest preset increment for...more
California employers may not apply time-rounding procedures to meal period time entries, based on a recent California Supreme Court decision. ...more
I had planned to focus this month’s installment of “Time Is Money” on the practice of rounding timeclock entries, addressing the history behind the practice as well as factors that make rounding today a riskier proposition...more