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If your employees are subject to the wage and hour provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (refer to 29 CFR Chapter V – Parts 500-800), time spent in training sessions may have to be counted as hours worked. If this is the case, these employees must be paid for this time.
The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division regulations on hours worked are found at 29 CFR Part 785. According to 785.1, “The amount of money an employee should receive cannot be determined without knowing the number of hours worked. This part discusses the principles involved in determining what constitutes working time.”
Now consider 785.27: “Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time if the following four criteria are met:
Meal periods are discussed at 785.19: “Bona fide meal periods are not worktime.... The employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals .... The employee is not relieved if he is required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while eating.”
Then, at 785.28: “Attendance is not voluntary, of course, if it is required by the employer. It is not voluntary in fact if the employee is given to understand or led to believe that his present working conditions or the continuance of his employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.”
And, at 785.29: “The training is directly related to the employee’s job if it is designed to make the employee handle his job more