Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB)– the state agency that manages operations for its various agencies – announced that they are altering how they expect time to be entered for employees who have workdays that stretch across calendar days. Specifically, this is almost always employees who work overnight. While most MGEC members work “regular” workdays, we do have members who work overnight and we want to make sure they are aware of the change.
In order to better comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act, MMB wants hours worked to be recorded on the actual day they are worked. The practice has been to report them all on one day, which might not be the same day in which the hours were generated. Someone working 10pm-6am, for example, now needs to record two hours worked on the first day and six on the second day.
We generally approve of changes that accurately reflect what (and when) work actually takes place. But we also want to ensure that there are no unintended consequences of such change. How overtime is calculated, how holiday pay works, and how sick/vacation accruals work could be affected. BUT MMB has advised us that their intention is to remain completely committed to employee benefits with this change. They are researching various scenarios to make sure this happens, and it’s likely that we will develop Memorandums of Understanding to codify out benefits. Communications the change will be coming from the employer. If you have any questions, please reach out to us!