By Stephanie Breedlove, Breedlove & Associates
In our last post, we helped remind you about getting your schedule in order to cut down on the craziness that sometimes consumes the holiday season. By now it’s probably full speed ahead!
If you anticipate working additional hours over the next few weeks, it’s important to be familiar with the wage and hour laws that apply to nannies. For hours worked over 40 in a 7-day period, you should be paid at an overtime rate of 1.5 times your regular hourly rate.
And notice we use the term “hourly rate.” Overtime requirements are not determined by type of pay, they are determined by type of work. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) says that nannies are non-exempt workers that are protected by overtime laws. So whether you are paid a “salary” or by the hour, you must be paid for every hour worked. While it is legal for the family to pay you a salary out of convenience, if you work additional hours, they should all be properly accounted for.
You can help the family with this. If your work schedule becomes more fluid this month, it’s very important to keep track of the hours you work so the family knows what they need to pay you each pay period. Ideally, they’ll be monitoring this for you, but it never hurts to be proactive by staying on top of your own schedule. With traveling, parties, and kids out of school, the holidays are hectic and it can be easy to lose track of the hours you work.
To further discuss overtime requirements, please feel free to give our office a call. We’re here to help Monday through Friday, from 8am to 6pm, Central Time.
While I understand what you are saying in tracking hours over 40 per 7 day week, I think most employers do not understand why, if you are paid a salary, you would be requesting overtime. In the corporate world, a salary means expanding (or contracting) hours while the salary is the same weekly or bi-weekly. Unless this is something discussed at the outset in an agreement, I think it would be difficult to approach the subject during the holidays. I suggest this is a topic for an annual review and renegotiation of your agreement. If you are renegotiating,, you could request to be paid hourly instead of a salary, which is the most equitable solution to these kinds of issues.