Posted on March 30th, 2020
Find below a complete transcript of this video.
What’s up, fellow entrepreneurs? Today I want to touch a little bit on technology for logging time and breaks and things like that.
Over the last five or six years, there’s quite a few companies that have come out with technology for phones and laptops and iPads and things like that, so that employees could easily log their time in, time out, breaks and so forth.
Then it also makes it much easier for the employer to track all of this because it’s electronic, you just put the data somewhere and then it somehow magically comes out as pay for the employee.
Well, throughout these years when I’ve seen all of these things, I’ve always told employers that I’ve never seen anything better for tracking time than a piece of paper or a log sheet that you make on paper that you give to the employee and allow them to log it, because throughout I’ve just seen a lot of problems that have happened with punch in, punch out systems, including clients that I’ve had that have owned factories.
Then because there’s long lines for the time clock, clients that punch in early or punch out a little bit late, and then I’ve seen attorneys try to claim that that’s overtime while they’re waiting, because they punched in a little bit early or they punched out late, and over the last however many years, when you add it all up it’s this much time and it should be overtime.
A lot of ridiculous stuff, but you know it happens.
Well, recently there was a case filed, August 1, 2019, and it’s Mecker versus Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and it basically is this exact situation, where the use of electronic in and out on personal cellphones has gotten Disney in trouble.
Basically, what happened is Disney had a process where people could log in, log out, schedule, do all of these things in an app that they would carry on their personal phones.
Well, this lawsuit was filed based on, well, you have to repay the employee then for the use of their personal equipment.
It sounds ridiculous, but at the end of the day, the superior court said, yes, Mecker was right and they ruled against Disney, and so now Disney has to go back and pay for the use of the equipment for who knows how many employees for who knows what time period.
I don’t know when Disney started using the system.
But at the end of the day, electronic systems are great and they certainly make things easier both for the employer and the employee, however, in California with this environment,
I just don’t see anything better than using a sheet of paper, having them log the days that they’re in, when they clock out, when they left for lunch, when they came back from lunch.
In the ones that I do, I even have the 10-minute breaks.
Now, I know you’re not required to keep the 10-minute breaks, but I’ve been to enough labor board hearings where they claimed they didn’t get their 10-minute breaks and the labor board just rules in their favor, even though that’s not really the law.
I made that part of the system that I give to the clients, or the sheet of paper, the log in, log out sheet of paper that we give to our clients to use. Some use it, some don’t. I just haven’t seen anything better, because there’s nothing like a sheet of paper where they fill it in themselves.
They sign it at the bottom warranting and representing that this were their times. It’s just a lot more difficult for them to claim that there was some wrongdoing by the employer when they filled it out themselves.
Anyway, that’s my spiel on using electronic systems, unfortunately in California it just isn’t worth it, even though it’s convenient.
So until next time, fellow entrepreneurs, be productive.
