Do you need to have a supervisor present when associates are working after hours or on the weekends? There is no law that requires that all work be supervised. So, it is perfectly legal and acceptable to have employee’s work after hours or on the weekends on company premises.  However, doing so raises some legal concerns.

For many employers, the summer season brings with it an increase in employee vacations. With that in mind, now may be a good time to re-visit vacation pay policies as they pertain to employee separation. In particular, how does your company handle accrued, but unused, vacation pay at the time of separation?

An all too common issue we see in working with businesses is a lack of diligence in requiring hourly employees to fully document their time.  Most do a good job of requiring their employees to document when they first get to work and when they leave.  However, employers must also be diligent in requiring employees to document the time they take for lunch.

Hiring employees for temporary summer employment can be stressful for a small business that is short on time and swamped with the seasonal demands the summer can bring.  Summer employees need to be trained quickly so that they can hit the ground running and start contributing to your success in as little time as possible.  One advantage to seasonal hiring during the summer is that there is an abundant source of young workers who are off from school and able to fill many different positions.  Their demand for wages is often lower because they are not supporting families of their own yet and their availability is very flexible because they are not in school.  It is important that your business follow all legal requirements related to the hiring of young people in order to ensure that the company remains in compliance and is not subjected to penalties or fines.

Earlier this month, Wal-Mart agreed to pay over $4.8 million in back wages and damages to employees across the country for failure to pay overtime wages as a result of an investigation of the U.S. Department of Labor.  The Department of Labor found that Wal-Mart misclassified over 4,500 managers as exempt from federal regulations requiring overtime wages to be paid for work over forty hours per week.