What happens if an employee clocks early?

According to the Fair Labor Standards Act, a US labor law regulating minimum wage requirements, overtime pay, and similar regulations, along with other state laws, you must pay your employees for the time they work — whether they’re clocked in or not. In this case, you must pay them for any time they’re on the clock.

How do I stop my employees from clocking early?

What do we do?

Have a policy that states that overtime must be pre-approved by the supervisor.
Discipline employees for working overtime that has not been pre-approved if you have the policy in place.
Send employees home early during that week so that they don’t go over 40 hours.

How early is too early to clock into work?

Do not clock in earlier than 7 minutes than the time you start to work. Way back when, we were reprimanded if we clocked in more than 5 minutes early. Clocking in more than 5 minutes early caused the managers to have to manually change your time so you wouldn’t get paid before your shift.

Can an employer make you clock out early?

Under California labor law, an employer can’t force you to work off-the-clock. That’s illegal. All time you spend working must be paid. Employers in California sometimes force their workers to come in early but not clock in, or to stay late but clock out first.

Is it OK to clock in 5 minutes early?

Clocking in 5 minutes early doesn’t flag on the attendance report as an early in so you shouldn’t get written up for it. Clocking in more than 5 minutes early would be a problem.

Do you get paid for extra minutes?

It is the employer’s responsibility to make sure that nonexempt employees are paid for all time worked, including applicable overtime, regardless of whether their supervisors approved it. If you don’t want to pay them for those extra minutes they are working, you must ensure that they do not perform the work.

When do you punch in early for a shift?

When an employee punches in early for a shift or punches out late at the end of the day, the FLSA does allow you to “disregard” the additional time outside the normal shift ifthe employee does not actually perform any work.

How do we handle employees who clock in too early?

Q. We have employees who clock in 20 to 30 minutes before the start of the work day. They don’t perform work until their shift starts. The employees say they will forget to clock in if they don’t do so when they arrive. Can we adjust their start time to reflect when they start working?

Is it OK for employees to start work 30 minutes early?

It’s also best to discourage employees from arriving in the work area 30 minutes before work is scheduled to start, unless you can be very certain that they are not starting work early just to “help out,” because if they do, they are entitled to be paid for that time.

What does punch in and swipe out mean?

The terms “clock in;” “punch in” and “swipe in (or out)” all mean the same. They all refer to the action whereby an employee slides his or her card through the slot on the time clock that reads the employee’s code number from the card and transmits the information to the timekeeping

When is punching the clock not hours worked?

Early or late punching of the clock is not hours worked when no work is done. Likewise, minor differences between the clock records and actual hours worked cannot ordinarily be avoided since all employees cannot clock in or out at precisely the same time.