FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) addresses the compensability of employee time spent in training programs. All of the following four general principles must be met for the activity not to be counted as working time:

1. attendance must occur outside the employee's regular working hours; and
2. attendance must in fact be voluntary; and
3. the employee must do no productive work while attending; and
4. the program should not be directly related to the employee's job.

Regulations state that attendance is not considered voluntary if it is required by the employer or if the employee believes that present working conditions or the continuance of employment would be adversely affected by non-attendance. The regulations also state that the training is directly related to the employee's job if the training is designed to make the employee handle his or her own job more effectively as distinguished from training for another job. For information on FLSA, or for questions regarding compensable versus non-compensable time, please contact Classification and Compensation at 293-5700 x6.

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