Have decided that we will be closing down our facility on Sundays. However, we will be requiring a certain number of employees to be “on call”. These employees will need to be within a certain radius of our facility in case they are called in. Some employees will be salary exempt and some employees are hourly. My question is – how would we pay the hourly workers? Can we pay them a flat rate for Saturday afternoon until Monday morning? If so, how do we make that calculation to their pay? If we pay them a certain amount per hour, how do we make that calculation?

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Have decided that we will be closing down our facility on Sundays. However, we will be requiring a certain number of employees to be “on call”. These employees will need to be within a certain radius of our facility in case they are called in. Some employees will be salary exempt and some employees are hourly. My question is – how would we pay the hourly workers? Can we pay them a flat rate for Saturday afternoon until Monday morning? If so, how do we make that calculation to their pay? If we pay them a certain amount per hour, how do we make that calculation?

For your hourly (non-exempt) employees, you will need to run the engagement test.

Are they waiting to engage or engaged to wait?

If waiting to engage, they are free to pursue their own interests within reason. If engaged to wait, they are under the employer’s control due to high-level restrictions on their activities during the waiting time.

A good way to determine the status of your on-call worker is to ask a few questions about Sunday activities.

How close to the shop MUST they remain?
How quickly must they arrive at the job?
Is this the usual commute for most or will it require some to stay in a hotel?
As long as they are willing to drop and go:
- Could the employee go to church and reasonably answer the call to come in if needed?
- Could they attend a cook-out or movie or be in the backyard grilling with friends?
- Could they reasonably be pursuing almost any other activity as long as they drop and go when you call?

If your answers are generally pretty flexible, they may be waiting to engage. This would mean no compensation is due until they answer the call. Commuting to the job would begin their time. But, they are not required to be paid for the drive home.

If your answers are pretty strict, they may be engaged to wait. This would require at least minimum wage for every hour of waiting time and full wages when the call comes. Overtime will apply for hours worked. Not hours spent waiting.

Flat rates are fine as long as you consider the overtime requirements for hours worked and the MW requirements for waiting pay if required.

Here is a DOL fact sheet addressing this issue: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.htm

Please let me know if you need further clarification.