Fair Labor Standards Act
Overview
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the federal law that establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards. All university employees are covered by the FLSA, although some individuals may be exempt from its provisions. Compliance with FLSA requires employees receive the current federal minimum wage and are paid for all hours worked. It further requires non-exempt positions be compensated at time-and-one half rate for all hours worked over 40 in the workweek. The new Virginia Overtime Wage Act that went into effect July 1, 2021 requires that employers in the Commonwealth of Virginia compensate non-exempt employees at a time and a half hourly rate for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek. The only exceptions to this new overtime compensation rule are for law enforcement and fire suppression employees, who may receive overtime compensation in the form of time and one-half pay or time and one-half leave (overtime leave). The standard Virginia Tech work week is normally Friday at midnight to the following Friday at midnight.
It is the policy of Virginia Tech that employees are not paid for time that they do not work, unless they have earned pay for time not worked under pertinent regulations (such as personal or sick leave).
The seven-day work week for the university is Friday at midnight to the following Friday at midnight. In calculating the total hours an employee works, hours used for leave of any kind including holidays, are not included. All employees of the university are covered by the FLSA, although some individuals may be exempt from its provisions.
- Ensuring employees are aware of the FLSA and corresponding university policies
- Ensuring accurate records are kept on all non-exempt employees in accordance with university requirements.
- Ensuring non-exempt employees working more than 40 hours per week are appropriately compensated.
- Ensuring non-exempt employees have prior approval to work overtime, or to use earned overtime leave.
- Ensuring the web-based leave report for non-exempt employees is reconciled with the Leave & Hours Worked Report (P128).
- Reconcile the time sheets to the Wage Payroll Reconciliation Report. This individual cannot be the employee that entered the hours in Banner nor should it be the supervisor who approved the hours worked.
- Personnel actions are properly authorized
- Reconciliations are performed on a timely basis
- Segregation of duties, such that different employees enter and approve personnel actions