By Michael Kopp and Sarah Hamilton

In a simpler world, only the time an employee spent working would count as “hours worked.”  In the world we live in, the employer may need to keep the pay clock running to track time that might be regarded as off duty, such as time spent sleeping, traveling, on call, or at rest. With a rising number of lawsuits now seeking to recover pay for idle time, let’s review some main issues.

The big picture: it is employer control, not employee productivity, that matters. California’s Wage Orders uniformly define “hours worked” as “the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, and includes all time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so.” So the key question often is not whether the employee is actually working during the time in question, but whether the employee merely is subject to the employer’s control.

When do I need to pay employees for not (really) working?

  • When can sleeping on the job be “hours worked”? In California, the final answer remains to be seen. Federal law allows employers and employees to agree to exclude up to 8 hours of a 24-hour shift as unpaid sleep time, as long as: (1) the employer provides adequate sleeping facilities, (2) the employee has at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep, (3) the employee agrees to the sleep deduction, and (4) sleep-time deductions are only permitted from a 24-hour shift.  California courts traditionally followed the federal approach. See Monzon v. Schaefer Ambulance Serv., Inc., 224 Cal. App. 3d 16 (1990). But stay tuned—whether California will continue to permit such agreements, and on what terms, is the central issue pending before the California Supreme Court in Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions, Inc. We will keep you updated here at CalPecs with new developments!
  • Are rest and recovery breaks “hours worked”?  California’s Wage Orders provide that the 10-minute rest breaks mandated for every 4 hours of work (or major portion thereof) are counted as  “hours worked.” That means they must be paid for and counted in determining whether the employee worked overtime.

But did you know there are other potentially paid breaks?  Required lactation breaks can be compensable time, to the extent those breaks coincide with the standard 10-minute rest periods mandated by the Wage Orders. (But lactation breaks taken outside of or in excess of the standard 10-minute rest periods are, to that extent, not compensable time.)  Also, for employers with outdoor places of employment, mandated “cool down” recovery time, for the purpose of heat illness prevention, is compensable time. See our previous article here for more details.

  • The daily commute: is heading to work also work?  Generally, the daily work commute (home-to-work and work-to-home) is not compensable as “hours worked” under either federal and California law. But if the employee performs work during the commute, such as reviewing reports while on the train, that time may be compensable.

Are there any other potential commuting pitfalls for the unwary employer?  Yes. California courts have held that employer-provided shuttles to work can convert this daily commuting time into “hours worked,” where the employer requires employees to use the employer-provided transportation. Morillion v. Royal Packing Co., 22 Cal. 4th 575 (2000). In contrast, commuting on truly optional employer-provided work shuttles need not be compensated. Overton v. Walt Disney Co., 136 Cal. App. 4th 263 (2006).

  • Other examples of “Money for Nothing” in California:

➢ My employee is on call, but at play. Need I pay?  Whether the on-call period is compensable depends upon the employer’s level of (what else?) control during the on-call period. Additional guidance can be found here.

➢ Planes, trains, and automobiles. Must I pay for long-distance travel away from the normal work site?  California peculiarities abound with respect to employee travel away from the normal work site. Unlike federal law, California generally requires work-related travel time to be counted as “hours worked.”  Further discussion regarding travel time pay can be found here.

Workplace Solutions Note:  In light of the significant travel required of some positions, employers should be extremely careful to evaluate the exempt status of their traveling employees to ensure that the employees truly fall within a prescribed exemption to overtime if treating an employee as exempt.

The moral of the story is that the law regarding compensable time continues to change, and California employers are well-advised to regularly audit their timekeeping and pay policies and practices to ensure all compensable “hours worked” are captured. If you have questions regarding these issues, please contact a member of Seyfarth’s Labor and Employment Group.

Edited by Coby Turner