“There’s an app for that.” It’s a phrase sneaking into the cultural consciousness and even the Department of Labor is catching the buzz. In early May the department launched an employee time-keeping app compatible with the the iPhone and iPod Touch. But the app is stirring controversy among labor lawyers and human resources professionals, with critics fearing it will create conflicts between employees and employers.
The free app, available in English and Spanish, is designed to empower employees to “independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they are owed,” according to a Wage Hour Division news release issued May 9.
While Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis is “pleased … to leverage increasingly popular and available technology to ensure that workers receive the wages to which they are entitled,” others see the app’s potential to create misunderstandings.
Lawrence S. McGoldrick wrote in a May 11 blog article on laborlawyers.com: “Most employees have no expertise in what is and is not FLSA worktime, and it is likely that ‘conventional wisdom’ will lead many [employees] to record time in this app that does not count as compensable FLSA ‘hours worked’.”
The controversy here, as McGoldrick and others see it, is whether the DOL app ultimately encourages employees to keep a separate set of books. An untold number of conflicts between employees and employers could arise from discrepancies between time tracked in two different systems.
What Can Your Company Do?
Time & Attendance Best Practices
Employees might be less likely to utilize a smart-phone time-keeping application if they feel their employers are accurately tracking and paying employees for time worked. To maintain compliance and positive employee relations, employers should evaluate their time-keeping process and incorporate the following best practices:
- Educate managers and employees about the Fair Labor Standards Act and what is considered hours worked under that act. http://www.dol.gov/compliance/laws/comp-flsa.htm.
- Incorporate a time and attendance system which accurately records time worked and which gives employees visibility into their time records, removing any questions about compensable hours worked.
- Utilize a time-keeping system which integrates with payroll and locks time cards after payroll processing. This will ensure that time records match payroll reports for audit and review.
- Maintain time records for the requisite duration and make them readily accessible for audit and review.
- Review company time records regularly for accuracy and empower employees to question potential discrepancies.
- Correct mistakes in time records and offer immediate reparation for miscalculations, even if it means cutting an off-cycle check.
Finding a workforce management solution that incorporates time-keeping with payroll may be the solution your company needs to stay compliant and prevent employees from seeking their own record-keeping tools.
APS OnLine offers transparency into time-keeping and pay records by interminably maintaining records in both the corporate and employee site.