When You Must Pay Employees

“It’s been raining a lot lately, which means I don’t have a full day’s work for my employees. Is there a problem with sending them home early?”

Your HR Survival Tip

As a business owner, you’re probably already well aware of the fact that California is very protective of employees’ wages. You know to pay your employees when they are doing their regular job, but there are other times when you will also need to pay your non-exempt (hourly) employees:

• Reporting Time Pay — If you have scheduled your employee to work 8 hours that day but discover you don’t really need them there, you can send them home. However, you must pay for half the hours of their scheduled day. You are required to pay no less than 2 hours but no more than 4 hours that day.
• Penalty Pay — If your employee does not take a full 30-minute meal break that began within their first 5 hours of work that day, chances are you owe penalty pay. Penalty pay is equal to one extra hour of their regular pay EVERY day your employee misses the meal break (and worked 6+ hours), started it late (after 5 hours), or didn’t take the full 30 minutes.
• Meetings / Training — If you are requiring your employee to participate in a meeting or training, it’s paid time. If you don’t want to pay, make sure they know it’s not mandatory.
• On-Call — If you have employees on-call, you owe them for the time they actually work while on-call. The paid time may also include their time to travel from their current location to a job site and back. You may owe even more if your on-call rules are too strict.
• Split Shift — You can’t disguise a 2-hour gap between an employee’s morning and afternoon shifts as a long meal break. If you need them to have a longer gap (over an hour) between work times that day, you may owe split shift pay. This is one hour of pay at minimum wage, regardless of the length of the gap. If the employee’s normal hourly wage is higher than minimum wage, the overage can be applied to this.
• After Hours — If you send your employee voicemails, emails, or texts after their regular hours, you will owe them wages for the time it takes them to read/listen and respond. That time might be overtime pay if they already worked 8 hours that day.
• Overtime — California has overtime after 8 hours in a day. If your employee works more than 8 hours in any day, the excess must be paid as overtime. It doesn’t matter if that’s the only day they worked that week. You can’t average out their hours for the week; you must look at each day’s hours.

It makes sense to add earnings codes to your payroll system so you can use them when you are paying any of the above. In some cases, that extra line item on their wage statement (pay stub) is your only proof you were compliant. Without proof of payment, you could end up paying for that time again. Let us know if you need help or have questions!