California Employers Should Review Time-Keeping Practices for Meal Breaks
Mark Payne, a partner in Troutman Pepper's Labor and Employment Practice Group, was quoted in the March 11, 2021 SHRM article, " California Employers Should Review Time-Keeping Practices for Meal Breaks."
"The ruling is significant," said Mark Payne, an attorney with Troutman Pepper in Orange County, Calif. "It provides a clear direction that any kind of rounding practice related to recording meal periods is prohibited."
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Employers should be doing everything they can to ensure they can prove meal period compliance, Payne said. "It's not enough to have a policy that says the company provides meal periods before the fifth hour of work," he explained. "The employer has the obligation to keep accurate records."
Employers have to record the actual length of the meal breaks. If an employee's meal period was short, the employers should be able to show it was the employee's choice and not because of anything the employer did, he noted.
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Although the court addressed only meal period rounding, employers may want to eliminate rounding practices altogether. "Rounding is still allowed for purposes of calculating wages," Payne said. "But the day may be coming when the court is less tolerant of rounding wage calculations, even when the practice is neutral and doesn't disadvantage employees." He noted that computerized time-keeping systems make it easier to precisely record time.