Workforce Bulletin

As the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency has come to an end, employees are heading back to conferences in droves and resuming their usual training activities. While employers big and small understand they must compensate employees for all time worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) as well as state and local wage and hour laws, whether attendance at such conferences and other training time constitutes hours worked for non-exempt employees remains a murky area for employers.

Four-Factor Test

Generally, training programs, lectures, meetings, and similar activities are compensable hours worked unless all four of the following factors are true:

Our colleague Nathaniel M. Glasser, a Member of the Firm at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Hospitality Labor and Employment Law Blog that will be of interest to many of our readers: “Fourth Circuit Decision Highlights Need for Employers to Assess Whether Training Time Should Be Compensated."

Whether time spent in training is compensable time under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) is an issue that the courts have addressed in a variety of contexts. A new Fourth Circuit decision – Harbourt v. PPE Casino Resorts Maryland, LLC – addressed that issue in the ...

Whether time spent in training is compensable time under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) is an issue that the courts have addressed in a variety of contexts. A new Fourth Circuit decision – Harbourt v. PPE Casino Resorts Maryland, LLC – addressed that issue in the context of pre-hire training provided to some casino workers in Maryland and concluded that the casino workers alleged sufficient facts to proceed with their claims that they should have been paid for pre-hire training.

After Maryland legalized full-fledged casino gambling in November 2012, the state had a ...