And Speaking of Telecommuting in Response to Rising Fuel Costs...

I posted yesterday about recent research on employer responses to the spike in gas prices.  According to that study, one of the most common strategies being pursued by companies is the offering of telecommuting to employees as one way to help them defray the rising costs of traveling to work.

But telecommuting programs present their own set of challenges to the employer, particularly with respect to non-exempt employees and the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Mike Haberman, author of HR Observations, has a great post up today on what he calls "the FLSA Train Wreck" as well as other issues which companies offering telecommuting to their workers must address.

From Mike's post:

The train wreck I alluded to in the title is with the Fair Labor Standards Act. The FLSA requires that all non-exempt employees (both hourly and salaried non-exempt employees) be paid for time worked more than 40 hours in a week (in some state and local jurisdictions for more than 8 hours in a day). This means if you have a non-exempt employee with a company issued laptop/Blackberry/phone and they are checking email, working on projects, etc. you have to track all their time and then compensate them for the overtime. This can get very complicated, particularly if those devises are used for personal things.

Click over to Mike's post to get up to speed on some of the issues your telecommuting program will likely face and read his advice on how to circumvent some of the landmines. 

Perhaps the compressed (typically 4 day) workweek, the other top strategy being chosen by surveyed employers to deal with commuting costs, is looking like a better option all the time...

Update: Readers - for more on this issue, check out Michael Moore's (he of the Pennsylvania Labor & Employment Blog) thoughts in the comments here as well as a related post on his blog and on Jon Hyman's Ohio Employers Law Blog.

Comments

[Michael Moore]

Telecommuting only complicates an existing issue of nonexempt employees “working” through their PDAs and laptops. Unless this work is de minimus, it is compensable time under the FLSA. I wonder how many nonexempt employees really use PDAs and laptops at all. I was thinking of the nonexempt job classes that this might apply to and came up with news reporters, inside sales, and some clerical positions. The solution is a simple one: Don’t give nonexempt employees after hours access to computer system. This area has been of some debate in legal circles because the FLSA is anachronistic. See John Hyman’s post at the Ohio Employer’s Blog: http://ohioemploymentlaw.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-flsa-

[Ann Bares]

Thanks, Michael. I was hoping you'd weigh in on this. And thanks, also, for the link to John Hyman's post. I'm going to add a reference to your comment and suggested link to my post itself, to ensure that readers don't miss it!