Wage and hour law
What is flsa?
Also called: Fair Labor Standards Act
The Fair Labor Standards Act is the federal law that sets minimum wage, overtime, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards for most US employers.
It sets a floor, not a ceiling. Where a state or city rule is more generous to the employee, that rule wins, which is why a national policy written only to the FLSA still gets employers in trouble in California, Washington, or New York.
The recordkeeping piece is the part small businesses overlook. You must keep specified payroll data including daily and weekly hours, and the burden of proving hours worked falls on the employer when records are missing.
Source: 29 CFR 516.2 (records employers must keep)
Handle this automatically
Kloqk is a free employee time clock for small business. It records the punches, applies your rules, and does this arithmetic for you.
Related terms
Overtime
Overtime is the extra pay a non-exempt employee earns for hours past 40 in a workweek, at no less than 1.5 times their regular rate under federal law.
Workweek
A workweek is a fixed, recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24-hour days, that you set in advance and use to calculate overtime.
Exempt vs non-exempt
Non-exempt employees must get minimum wage and overtime. Exempt employees are excluded from those rules, but only if they meet strict salary and duties tests.
Timesheet
A timesheet is the record of hours an employee worked in a pay period, used to calculate pay and to prove compliance if you are ever audited.
General information for US employers, not legal advice. Wage and hour rules change and vary by state, so confirm specifics with your state labor agency or counsel.