Question:
Can we tell nonexempt employees not to check email and messages when they’re supposed to be off the clock? They’ve been doing this a lot, and we don’t want to continue paying them for this additional, unscheduled time.
Answer: You can tell nonexempt employees that they shouldn’t read or respond to messages when they’re not scheduled to be working. When communicating your expectations, it may be beneficial to investigate why these employees check email and messages outside their scheduled hours.
How you handle the issue may depend on what’s driving it. Employees feeling the need to catch up on work they didn’t have time to finish during their scheduled hours would likely have a different solution than employees deliberately clocking unapproved time to increase the size of their paychecks. If, after communicating your expectations, employees continue working unapproved times, you can remind or discipline them, as appropriate.
This Q&A does not constitute legal advice and does not address state or local law.
This information is from Mineral, a human resource solutions portal. Every month, we share an important HR Q&A. As a VMA member, you can also get other HR questions answered for free through your complimentary Mineral account. Contact jessica@visualmediaalliance.org for questions.
David Katz
Vice President
VMA Insurance Services
To send your questions, write to david@visualmediaalliance.org