Human Resource Blog

Compensatory time

We have a Business Manager and an Operations manager. They accure comp time instead of overtime, however it has only been at straight time instead of overtime. One of the Managers has over 240 hours. The hours over 240 does it need to paid out at time and a half all at once or can we add it to his pay check bi-weekly.
Thank you

We assume that both the Business Manager and Operations Manager are exempt salaried employees. Specifically, they would fall in the category of Executives under the FLSA, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. As exempt employees, they are not entitled to overtime, regardless of how many extra hours they work. Your company is very, very generous to give these exempt employees compensatory (or *comp*) time when they work more than 40 hours per week. Ninety percent of employers do not.

The purpose of comp time is to permit the exempt employee to take time off at a mutually conveniant point in the future. Most employers limit the amount of comp time an employee can accumulate, and require advance notice for the employee to use it.  

It is even more unusual for an employer to pay an employee for unused comp time, regardless of how much the employee has accumulated. If you want to make this incredibly generous gesture, there is no need for you to pay the employee time-and-one-half for the comp time. Simply paying straight time is much more than sufficient.

This answer would be different if the employees were non-exempt or hourly.  The answer might also be different in California.