Payroll in Practice: 10.25.2021

Question: Our operations director is convinced that the workweek varies for an employee based on the employee’s work schedule. He claims that the workweek starts the first day at work after a day off and continues for consecutive days until the next day off. Whenever an employee takes a day off in the middle of the week or when consecutive days cross into the next pay period, we have trouble tracking hours worked and overtime compensation because the workweeks do not coincide with the pay periods. Is this the correct way to track workweeks?

Answer: The operations manager is misinterpreting the rules related to workweeks. Essentially, a workweek provides a timeframe for determining whether minimum-wage and overtime requirements are met. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not require that an employer use the same workweek for all employees. Rather, the FLSA defines a workweek for a given employee as 168 consecutive hours at the end of which the next workweek starts.

Generally, the workweek for a given employee does not change once it is established.

For example, John’s workweek begins at noon on Monday. The next workweek starts at noon the following Monday regardless of the number of hours or the days John worked during the week. If his shift starts at 8 a.m. Monday, the first four hours of the day, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., are in the first workweek and the second four hours are in the second workweek.

The workweek need not coincide with the pay period. Some benefits of a biweekly pay period are lost when an employee’s workweek spans pay periods, so it makes sense to synchronize the workweek with a weekly or biweekly pay period, but it is not necessary.

For example, Sharon’s workweek also starts at noon on Monday. However, the company’s biweekly pay period starts at midnight Monday morning of the current week. Sharon has parts of three workweeks in each biweekly pay period: 12 hours in the first workweek, 168 hours in the second, and 156 hours in the third.

Your operations manager’s plan, as described, may circumvent overtime pay requirements, which could result in the company owing back pay to workers.

For example, suppose Sharon worked 10 hours a day on Monday and Tuesday, took personal leave on Wednesday, then worked 10 hours a day on Thursday and Friday and 8 hours on Saturday. Sharon did not work on Sunday and returned for her usual shift on Monday.

Under the operations manager’s system, Sharon would have crammed two workweeks into seven consecutive days. She would have worked 20 hours during the first workweek and 28 hours during the second. Presumably, she would not be entitled to overtime because she did not work more than 40 hours during either “week.”

However, again, the FLSA workweek is 168 consecutive hours. So, assuming the workweek began at midnight on Monday morning, Sharon worked 48 hours during the workweek and is entitled to eight hours of overtime pay.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., or its owners.

Author Information

Patrick Haggerty is the owner of a tax practice in Chapel Hill, N.C., and an enrolled agent licensed to practice before the Internal Revenue Service. The author may be contacted at phaggerty@prodigy.net.

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