DOL Stands for Department of Labor NOT Department of Employers

I have written numerous times about the efforts of the US Department of Labor to increase their compliance efforts. They have taken a much more advesarial stance to dealing with employers. To find those posts I have written just do a search on this blog on USDOL. One of the posts you will find deals with their "WE CAN HELP" program. This is designed to help your employees report you, their employer, to the DOL so you can be investigated.

My fellow blogger Jon Hyman, an employment attorney, was poking around on the We Can Help pages and he came across something very interesting. He discovered something called the Work Hours Calendar. It is a tool for your employee to track their work time. It provides a way for employees to record arrival time, start time, break and meal times, stop time and when they actually leave. It gives lessons on overtime, misclassification, and what are called donning and doffing rules. These are the activities employees engage in to prepare for and to conclude work. They are told to keep these records and then to send them to the DOL. You can find this worksheet here.

Jon and I both believe that the Wage & Hour division is looking in particular for violations that can be classified as "off the clock". I strongly suggest that you go to Jon's blog and read his take on this. He can be found at  Do you know? The DOL is encouraging employee covert ops in your business.

Pay particular attention to his final line. Can you really put off that wage & hour audit? I don't think so. Find yourself a good consultant or good attorney and get this done. (In great modesty, I can make a very personal recommendation for a great consultant. )