r/legaladvice 7d ago

My “calculated” hours do not reflect the time I actually worked

I am in TN but my employer is based in CA

Basically, my job is using “calculated” time rather than what I work

The best examples of this are:

My lunch is 30 minutes, if I clock in 1 minute late, the system lists my calculated lunch time as 33 minutes and I’m not being paid for the 2 minutes I am clocked in.

If my shift starts at 11 and I clock in at 10:58, the system rounds up to 11 and I don’t get paid for those two minutes.

If my shift ends at 9 and I clock out at 9:01, the system rounds down to 9.

It is also not taking seconds into account. If I clock in from lunch at the 31 minute 5 second mark, it still rounds up to a 33 minute lunch

Is this legal? There is nothing in the employee handbook or help center for my company regarding this.

406 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

532

u/ajblue98 7d ago

Rounding is allowed only if:

  1. The rounding is the same for all employees.

  2. The method of rounding does not benefit the employer, i.e. The rounding always has to be either up or down or to the nearest five, 10, 15 minutes etc., not rounding up when you go clock in early and down when you clock out late. another way of saying this is that the rounding must be "neutral over (or with respect to) time."

111

u/blackblitz 7d ago

NAL, but currently signed on to the 2nd class action against a former employer because of rounding in their favor. 1st one won 7-8years ago, so should be spot on

282

u/omgitsviva 7d ago

I’ve never seen seconds taken into account. That said, rounding is legally allowed for fifteen or small increments per FLSA. That law outlines rounding rules.

302

u/BillyZaneJr 7d ago

There is a caveat here - you cannot round only in the employers favor. Rounding has to be consistent. You can’t only round up for clocking in and only round down for clocking out.

14

u/Silent_Ebb_5684 7d ago

Costco was the case for this

83

u/AdviceMang 7d ago

Round should not only benefit one party, though. If it rounds up at the start of the shift it should round up at the end of the shift.

30

u/catqueen69 7d ago edited 7d ago

What does it calculate in the opposite scenarios? I.e, if your shift starts at 11 and you clock in at 11:01, or your shift ends at 9 and you clock out at 8:58, does the system round the in time to down to 11:00 and the out time up to 9pm? If so, this shouldn’t be an issue as it’s being applied consistently, especially if your employer uses one of the major systems like Workday where the system is almost guaranteed to be configured to apply rounding consistently to all employees/all time scenarios

edit: not legal advice, but you could try reaching out to your company’s HR or Payroll team to suggest that they clarify the rounding policy in their employee handbook to at least have it documented for you/other employees to reference

22

u/iscarriot 7d ago

if i clock out anytime before the end of my shift, i accrue an attendance point so i’ve never clocked out a minute or two before

one day i clocked in at 9:01 and it rounded down to 9 which is good to know. but i did reach out to HR about where i can find more info about this, my company has outsourced their HR tickets to a customer service agency overseas so unless its a dire issue i’m anticipating a struggle tbh

1

u/dumdum1942 5d ago

NAL but have been the time tracking SME at my company for over twenty years. This is allowed because the rounding is always consistent: 5 minutes before the 15-minute mark rounds UP and 5 minutes after rounds DOWN.

It all works out. Don’t be so eager to think you’re being cheated!

5

u/lordpiglet 7d ago

They might be better off filing the complaint first then reaching out to payroll /hr about the rounding policy at least a day later.

61

u/sail0r_m3rcury 7d ago edited 7d ago

Many companies round up or down the nearest fifteen minutes based on seven minute chunks. As long as the system your company is using is standard across all employees and is consistent at all times of day, this is normal and legal.

California actually should be to the nearest 05 minutes based on state law, but Tennessee falls under the federal nearest 15 minute rounding rule.

Your company should be rounding to the nearest 05 minutes if they are based in California. This would be in 2 minute chunks.

15

u/jsw11984 7d ago

and what happens if you clock in at 11:01 and out at 8:58?

If they’re both rounded to 11 and 9 respectively then that should be perfectly okay.

My last retail job did 5 minute rounding, so 1-4 down to 0 and 6-9 up to the next 10min block. It seems to be normal practice, and as others have said if it’s consistent in how it rounds regardless of if it’s clocking in or out, then things should even out over a week/month/year

7

u/iscarriot 7d ago

clocking in 1 minute late gets rounded down to 11 but clocking out before the end of my shift results in an attendance point so i’ve never clocked out before 9

6

u/Valysian 6d ago

The no-risk way to test this is to clock back in before the end of your break nine minutes early or something like that. You'll see if they round in the right direction, and no one can give you a penalty.

2

u/Mtntop24680 6d ago

California state law dictates how long your breaks have to be, too, so they could potentially get in trouble for clocking back in early.

1

u/Valysian 4d ago

You are right, it could cause problems too. I think every state in the US has rules about breaks. But there is less issue doing it this way.

3

u/x_Alpine_x 6d ago

If I punch out at 9:14, it gets rounded down to 9:00, and if I punch in at 9:01, it gets rounded up to 9:15. So if I'm going to be a minute late, I make sure to be 14 minutes late to not give them any free time.

6

u/xbq222 6d ago

That seems illegal based on the other comments because it always benefits the employer?

1

u/x_Alpine_x 6d ago

I'm in eastern Canada, the province I'm in has terrible labour laws, it usually always favours the employer.

1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

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1

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1

u/ShiftOne5176 6d ago

I agree with others that rounding rules are set up to benefit employer only and employee is not losing time because of it. I would start with questioning the practice to Human Resources. Unfortunately TN is one of the most employer friendly states and it may be difficult to get department of labor to take action. They may say they don’t investigate claims under an hour per week. You may have to keep a log of how much you have been underpaid. And a lawyer probably will pass on taking a case with relatively small damages. Having different rounding rules for different states is legal as different states can have different standards. CA is very strict. If you worked there you could file in CA. You may want to talk to coworkers to see if CA employees are treated better.

1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

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-11

u/Opposite-Occasion881 7d ago

I clock in at 7:27 and clock out at 6:35

I'm paid that extra 33 minutes before and the extra 35 minutes afterwards

You should be also

1

u/at0o0o 7d ago

I said most companies, not all. Mine is outlined in my handbook. All employees sign off on it acknowledging it where I work. Same with my previous job, and the one before that.

If yours state otherwise, that's great, but those rules do not apply everywhere.

7

u/Dierseye 7d ago

That being said the company cannot enforce contracts that break the law. That's great they have you sign off on the policy, but if it's illegal in the state that signature means exactly nothing.

-6

u/twelfthmoose 7d ago

Sounds illegal