Human Resource Blog

This is really more of a political discussion than an HR question, but legislators in several states agree with you. Seven states, plus Guam, do not permit employers to take a tip credit. In those states, tipped employees must be paid the same minimum wage as other workers. That means that in Alaksa, tipped workers earn $7.15 per hour. In California, $8.00. In Minnesota, they must be paid $5.25 or $6.15 per hour (depending upon the size of the company.) In Montana most tipped workers earn $6.55 per hour. In Nevada, either $5.85 or $6.85, in Oregon $7.95 and in Washington $8.07.

Under federal law, employers may take a tip credit of $4.42 per hour and pay tipped workers just $2.13 per hour. However, we would like to point out that a server who earns just $4.42 per hour in tips is either a) very bad at his or her job or b) working in the wrong restaurant. Most servers earn far above the minimum wage. Despite that, many people find the process of servers being paid mostly in voluntary tips as antiquated.

Check with the Department of Labor in your state. In many states, earned commissions are considered wages and employees must be paid them, on payday. In a few other states, if the amount of the commission is in question, the employer can wait until that dispute is resolved, before paying it. However, the employer usually must pay the undisputed amount on time.

It is odd that a commission audit should take so long. Normally in this computer age, a business audit can be completed in a few days, so anything beyond a week seems excessive.

It also would not be a best practice in the HR field to hold a particular employees check, unless errors had already been found in the commission payments for that particular employee. In some states (California) even if the employer discovered an error on commissions paid in the past, the employer might not be entitled to deduct them from the current paycheck.

Because there is a signed contract in the form of a compensation plan, there is also the possiblity that the employee could seek representation by a lawyer and sue for breach of contract.

Yes, an employer can require that employees work on Saturday. In fact, Saturday and/or Sunday are regular work days in retail, emergency services, hospitaltiy, banking, helath care and myriad other industries. There are probably more workers in the US who DO work on weekends, than those who are off every weekend. In a number of other industries, such as construction and manufacturing, employees may work on Saturdays to speed production.

Even if an employer has the past practice of being closed on weekends, the employer can change that and require that employees work on Saturday.

However, the employer must pay workers appropriately when they work on Saturday. An hourly worker who puts in less than 40 hours for the payroll week must be paid at his or her usual rate. A worker (hourly or salaried non-exempt) who puts in more than 40 hours in the payroll week must be paid overtime. A salaried exempt worker need not receive additional pay for working the extra day.

Some salaried employees are entitled to overtime when working more than 40 hours per week. It depends upon the employees primary duties. Here is a link to the federal guidelines on what makes an employee exempt from the federal overtime and minimum wage laws: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/overtime.htm

If this employee was an outside sales person, or a manager who independently hired and fired at least 3 employees, he or she would probably not be entitled to overtime in these circumstances.

Generally an employer cannot dock a salaried exempt employees pay when he or she works at least 1 hour during the day. Doing so suggests that the employee is not salaried exampt, and is entitled to overtime when he works more than 40 hours per week. The US Department of Labor Wage and Hour division would make the final determination in this case.

Docking the employees pay due to not meeting a quota is a different issue. This is a matter of state law in most cases. Some states (California) do not permit any such deductions from an employees salary. Others would permit it, but only if the employee had agreed in writing, in advance, to such a disciplinary procedure. For a more specific answer, please post a question mentioning your state.

You are correct that you will be required to pay employees for any mandatory training. Under federal law, training qualifies as time worked when it is required by the employer. And, if this results in an employee working over 40 hours in the week, they are entitled to overtime.

Lets assume that the employees from your office will be attending a 4 hour training seminar on Saturday. Janice works 40 hours during the week, so she will total 44 hours with the training seminar. She must be paid overtime for 4 hours. Todd works 38 hours during the week, plus 4 hours on Saturday, for 42 hours total. He must be paid for 2 hours of overtime. However, Lisa works 20 hours during the week, plus 4 hours on Saturday for a total of 24 hours. The employer is not required to pay Lisa any overtime, because she does not work more than 40 hours in this week.