Timekeeping For Exempt Employees: Poll Results

Readers will recall that we included a poll with our most-recent post concerning whether an employer should keep records of the time worked by employees who qualify for a federal Fair Labor Standards Act minimum-wage and/or overtime exemption.

The poll was by no means scientific, but the responses suggest that many employers do maintain such records, and that most of those do so as a matter of policy.

The Results

The question posed was, "Does your organization require exempt employees to keep a record of their hours worked?" In declining-percentage order, the responses were:

"No, we do not.":   58.3%

"Yes, we do so for reasons of internal policy.":   30.6%

"Yes, because this is legally required even under the exemption(s) we rely upon.":   11.1%

The Bottom Line

There is no FLSA-based impediment to requiring exempt employees to keep records of their hours worked. And as we said, timekeeping is mandatory for purposes of at least some FLSA exemptions.

But whatever goals are to be achieved by such timekeeping will of course be served best (perhaps only) if the time records are accurate.