New overtime rules

[teller80]

For me, my (travel) time starts from the time I leave my home until the time I check into the hotel. If I am at the conference then head straight to the airport I am "working" from the time of the conference until I get back to my door." Each is charged to a different charge code though...And if your company has a lot of travel and lots of over 40 hour people making less than 52K, salary expense is going to be huge!

I'm thinking that should be the case too. I don't think work travel is much fun at all, I'd like them to get some perks to it.

There are only a few employees that are in this situation, but I still need to know how it'll impact the budget.

 

[teller80]

True, but I also mispoke when I mentioned making them salary. Sounds like they already are.

yes, they are salaried already.

 

[Tiggeroo]

It seems to me since they are low paid they should get paid for their travel time.

This is the reason for the new law. There are many businesses that salary an employee in that low range 20-40,000ish and then work them tons of hours. In the end it computes to a low hourly wage. An example where I have seen this is low to middle management restaurant employees. They don't hire enough people, label a few managers and have them doing the work of several hourly employees.

 

[TheIncredibles!]

We have pay rates so complicated on our end we have to use a spreadsheet I created just to figure out all of this. We have workers that work in house at their regular job at their hired rate plus 1.5 for OT for that job. If we send them for an outside job a whole different level of rates apply. One rate if they are doing outside work during normal business hours. A second rate it it is outside normal business hours (ot) and a third rate for work on Sunday/Holidays so each person that does this work has 5 potential hourly rates in effect.

We pay for travel time and actual work time. The minute they leave the office until they get to the hotel they are paid. If they are traveling by truck the one driving gets more money for travel time since he is "working" during the drive and the others technically are not. Plus if it's a lengthy drive the driver will not be able to work on the job site as much as the others so then we have to balance his pay to insure the driver is at least equally compensated. We do not pay for meal time(although we pay for all food etc during the job)and do not pay for down time. The guys have to all maintain separate time sheets for each of them per job and submit them when they come back in the office.

 

[mom2grace]

I do not travel for work and neither does my husband. My husband and sister are salary employees for the same company, Fortune 500.

My sister does travel 1/2 to 3/4 of the time and she loves it but from my view she gets screwed BIG TIME. As a salaried employee way above any limits of the laws that are referenced here, no extra compensation, no comp days. Of course, enough FF miles and hotel points to travel to Hawaii for free, once, a few year ago. She is gone all of the time, and most of it involves the weekend.

My point is, there is NO WAY you could get me to miss so much time with my kids and husband. DH feels the same way. Err on the side of being too generous in ways that are allowed by your company (they don't have to cost money).

 

[tvguy]

I've only done air travel regularly as a salaried employee. Right now I'm paid hourly and hardly fly, but do drive long distances twice a week for work. I don't get paid hourly for the time commuting, but I do get paid the .55 cents per mile rate which actually ends up being more than my hourly rate.

You must drive fast.

 

[wvjules]

I do not travel for work and neither does my husband. My husband and sister are salary employees for the same company, Fortune 500.

My sister does travel 1/2 to 3/4 of the time and she loves it but from my view she gets screwed BIG TIME. As a salaried employee way above any limits of the laws that are referenced here, no extra compensation, no comp days. Of course, enough FF miles and hotel points to travel to Hawaii for free, once, a few year ago. She is gone all of the time, and most of it involves the weekend.

My point is, there is NO WAY you could get me to miss so much time with my kids and husband. DH feels the same way. Err on the side of being too generous in ways that are allowed by your company (they don't have to cost money).

Different strokes...she likes it, you do not. She does it, you do not. FF miles and hotel points are HUGE perks as far I'm concerned.

 

[sam_gordon]

You must drive fast.

Not really. If you average 60 miles an hour (fairly easy to do), that would be $33/hour. Now, that may be less than you're making, but for someone making less, that could be a good deal.

 

[sam_gordon]

Different strokes...she likes it, you do not. She does it, you do not. FF miles and hotel points are HUGE perks as far I'm concerned.

I've got to agree. Presumably she agreed to a pay rate and job responsibilities, so I don't see how you can say she's "getting screwed". Most folks on salary would make more per hour in order to "make up" for working longer hours/no comp time/etc.

 

[DopeyDame]

I've been asked to help plan next years salary budget based on the new overtime law that goes into effect in June. Our HR department hasn't been much help (their response was, "we'll let you know when we get further details", meanwhile the next fiscal year budget is looming).

Right now, if you are salary and make more than $23,000, your employer can work you more than 40 hours w/o additional compensation. The new law lifts the salary cap to $52,000, so those who make less than that will need to get paid time and a half for any hours over 40.

My problem is employees who travel, how do I compute their hours worked? This would be a typical scenario:

Saturday - fly to destination (3 hr flight)

Sunday - attend several events, each a few hours long but spaced out throughout the day. First event is 9-11 am, second is 4-6 pm, third is 7-9 pm.

Monday - same.

Tuesday - attend morning event that ends at noon but waits to catch a 6:00 pm flight because it's less expensive (or it may be the only one available).

How would you calculate work hours?

Saturday: 3 hr flight, plus the 2 hrs you have to get to the airport prior? What about travel to the hotel after you land?

Sunday & Monday - Are you 'on the clock' so to speak from 9am - 9pm? Or only while you're attending events?

Tuesday - Are you on the clock until the plane lands? I think it would be punishing the employee to assume from noon-6 is not company time.

Does anybody have any guidelines their company is suggesting? Thank you!

I used to travel semi-frequently for my job. I'm officially salaried but because we do a lot of government contracting, we actually get paid for the hours we work (most of the time... it can get complicated...)
Here's how my job would have considered your scenario:

Saturday - paid from the time you leave your house to the time you land in your hotel, minus your normal commute time. (So if your normal commute is 45 minutes, you're not "on the clock" until 45 minutes after you leave the house. Obviously this is pretty wishy-washy.)

Sunday and Monday - paid when you are actually working. So in your example, paid for six hours that day. (Although, there were some situations when we were encouraged to bring other work to do to ensure we got up to eight hours that day)

Tuesday - paid for time to attend morning event and paid for travel time from the time you leave the hotel to head to the airport until you got home, minus your normal commute. So you wouldn't be paid for the in between time, although again, if you could find something legitimate to do for work during that time, you could certainly charge it. But if you were at the hotel pool, nope - not chargeable.

 

[wvjules]

This might have a huge effect on some smaller companies. I'm curious, OP, as to how much higher your salary expense is going to be.

 

[sam_gordon]

I'm curious, OP, as to how much higher your salary expense is going to be.

I think that's what the OP is trying to figure out.

 

[wvjules]

I think that's what the OP is trying to figure out.

I know. I'm curious as to what it is going to be.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Not really. If you average 60 miles an hour (fairly easy to do), that would be $33/hour. Now, that may be less than you're making, but for someone making less, that could be a good deal.

If that's in your own car, you're only getting paid what it costs to keep your car up.

I had to drive ~600 miles round trip in my car last Summer on company business. I was paid $.55/mile for the 600 miles I put on my car, plus I was on the clock the entire time (save for lunch).

 

[sonnyjane]

You must drive fast.

Actually I just make very little money hourly hahah!

Plus it's highway driving, 70mph speed limit, so just under $40 an hour for three hours.

 

[tvguy]

Not really. If you average 60 miles an hour (fairly easy to do), that would be $33/hour. Now, that may be less than you're making, but for someone making less, that could be a good deal.

Station I worked at in the 1980's used to run job openings for area businesses. I always thought it was a joke. One was a job for a truck driver that got paid a certain amount per mile. To make minimum wage you would have to average 85 miles an hour.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Station I worked at in the 1980's used to run job openings for area businesses. I always thought it was a joke. One was a job for a truck driver that got paid a certain amount per mile. To make minimum wage you would have to average 85 miles an hour.

Precisely why most of the dangerous moves you'll see from truck drivers are made by those who are paid by the mile.

 

[sam_gordon]

Station I worked at in the 1980's used to run job openings for area businesses. I always thought it was a joke. One was a job for a truck driver that got paid a certain amount per mile. To make minimum wage you would have to average 85 miles an hour.

According to http://www.alltrucking.com/faq/per-mile-trucking-salary/, per mile rates are currently between .28 and .40/mile. Let's use .34 as an average. So driving 10 hours/day @ 50 miles per hour = 500 miles/day * .34 = $170/day. So that would be $17/hour (it doesn't drop to minimum wage until you work more than 15 hours).

 

[teller80]

This might have a huge effect on some smaller companies. I'm curious, OP, as to how much higher your salary expense is going to be.

I think that's what the OP is trying to figure out.

Sam is right, it's what I'm trying to figure out.

To make it more fun I don't know what anyone's salaries are. I'm just working on helping calculate hours worked while traveling, the white shirts will take a look at it and decide if they want to increase the pay to above the threshold or give time off later in the week. Or pay overtime.

 

[wvjules]

I know that is what you are trying to figure out. I'm curious as to what the result is going to be.