state whether or not each situation would be considered compensable time (and why or why not)

1) An employee of a fast food chain has to arrive at work 15 minutes early to change into the mascot costume and it typically takes another 15 minutes at the end of the shift to change out of the costume and properly store it. Due to the cost of the costume, employees are not allowed to take the costume home. The mascots typically work from 10am 2pm, to cover the lunch rush periods. How much time would be compensable for the mascots, assuming the conditions/schedule listed above? 2) George is a Radiology Technician at a local hospital and when on call, is required to be no further than 30 minutes away from the facility. Is the on call time, compensable? 3) Alice works as an Order Processor at a local retail store. She is an hourly employee and her start time is 8am, however she likes to arrive at least 20 minutes early to organize her desk, check emails and answer any voice mails that came in after her shift ended the day before. What time would her compensable time begin? 4) Tricia is an Administrative Assistant and her job requires her to travel from one location to another during the course of her normal workday. She uses her own car and is reimbursed for mileage. She spends approximately 1 hour per week traveling. Tricia lives only 2 miles from her primary location - A, but lives 10 miles from the furthest location - B. Is her travel time compensable when she is traveling from either Location A or Location B? 5) Ron and Tim both work as landscapers during the summer months. Due to the heat, the scheduled start time is 7am. Typically though, the crew leader is late and most days they do not actually start work until 7:30 or 8am. Ron likes to catch a quick nap while he waits, however Tim usually will pick up a broom or clean to pass the time. What time would his compensable time begin for Ron and Tim (assume that 7:45 is the average start time)? 6) Jane is a Senior Help Desk Technician that is considered a non-exempt employee. Her normal work hours are Monday-Friday from 8am 5pm. Because she is the primary escalation person for her company, she is required to carry a company cell phone with her until 10pm, Monday Friday when she is not at work. Escalated calls occur on an ad-hoc basis and she does not have any additional restrictions, she simply needs to answer the calls if they come in. Is this on-call time, compensable? John is a Training Specialist for a retail operation in Omaha, NE. His normal hours are 8am 5pm Monday-Friday with an hour for lunch. Due to a system upgrade, John has had to travel to multiple locations to train staff on the upgrades. The following travel occurred within a pay period: 7) Fort Worth, TX by airplane - John left on a Monday morning at 8am and returned on Tuesday at noon and did not return to work that day. John recorded the following hours for his timecard: Monday = 16 hours (8am midnight) and Tuesday = 12 hours (midnight 12pm). 8) Kansas City, MO by car John left on Wednesday morning at 8am, arrived in KC by 11am, conducted the training and left KC by 5pm. John arrived back in Omaha at 8pm. John recorded the following hours on his timecard: Wednesday = 12 hours (8am 8pm) His supervisor questioned John about this, John replied that because he was traveling for work, he was on the clock and therefore should be paid for it. For both #7 and #8, how many compensable hours does John actually have? Toby works as Call Center Representative. He works from 7am 4:30am, Monday Friday with 30 minutes for lunch. He also typically takes several mini-breaks during the day to smoke. These breaks typically range from 5-10 minutes in length and he would typically take at least, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Toby prefers to eat his lunch at his desk, however he also tends to answer questions from his manager and even his co-workers throughout his lunch, because he is the senior representative on that team. This occurred for at least a year. Toby recently was let go because due to a downsizing in the department. Toby called his former manager, Kelly and stated that he was owed 30 minutes of pay for the past year because technically he was doing work while eating. Kelly stated that this was not correct, he was on a lunch break and answering questions was completely voluntary. She went on to state that even if he was working during lunch, she never charged him for his breaks, so if he wanted to make an issue out of the lunch breaks, she would bring up the smoke breaks and then he might owe the company money. 9) Does Toby have a legitimate compensable time claim? Why or why not? 10) Does Kelly have a legitimate counter compensable time claim? Why or why not?

Compensable time refers to the hours than an employee must be paid for by their employer.

1: This would be considered compensable time because his job requires him to put on addtional gear.

2: This would not be considered compensable time since it is only compensable time when the employee is "working" on call.

3: Her compensable time would start at 8am since that is what her scheduled time is. Her work didn't require her to come in 20 mins early she chose to do so.

4: Time spent traveling during normal work hours is considered compensable time. But since it is home to work or work to home traveling after hours it is not considered compensable time.

5: Ron and Tim's compensable time would begin at the actual start time of work, which is 7:45am on average. Any time spent waiting before that would not be considered compensable time unless they are required to be on-site by their employer at that time.

6: Generally, if Jane is required to carry a company cell phone and be available to answer escalated calls outside of her regular work hours, then that time would be considered compensable work time. However, if Jane is free to engage in personal activities and is not significantly restricted by the on-call requirement, then the time may not be considered compensable.

7: John would be considered to be on travel status during his travel time. However, only the time he spent working (e.g., attending meetings, conducting business) would be considered compensable time. It is unclear how much time John spent working versus how much time he spent traveling. Assuming John working a total of 8 hours on Monday and 4 hours on Tuesday, then his compensable time for that trip would be 12 hours.

8: John would be considered to be on travel status only during the time he spent driving from Omaha to Kansas City and back. The time he spent conducting the training would be considered compensable time. Based on the information provided, John spent a total of 6 hours on the road and 6 hours conducting the training. Therefore, his compensable time for that trip would be 6 hours. In total, John's compensable time for both trips would be 18 hours (12 hours for TX + 6 hours for KC).

9: These questions were a little more difficult for me. I decided to research a little bit and this is what I found about lunch breaks. "For example, an employer who remains at his/her desk while eating lunch and regularly answers the telephone and refers callers is working. The time must be counted and paid as compensable hours worked because the employee has not been completely relieved from duty." (Fact Sheet, n.d., p. 14). Therefore, I believe that Toby does have a legitimate "compensable time" claim, since whether it was voluntary or not he still was not relieved from all his work duties.

10: With Kelly's "compensable time" claim, it is not legitimate. "Under the FLSA, you are not required to give them breaks to smoke. But if you do let employees take breaks from five to 20 minutes long, you must count them as hours worked. If employees take unauthorized breaks to smoke, you do not need to pay them or count the time toward their total time worked." (Dewitt, 2022, p. 16-17). Since Kelly admitted to knowing about these smoke breaks then they must count them as hours worked since she or someone authorized these breaks. These breaks were never unauthorized so technically they did have to count those hours as worked.

what are your thoughts on this