Is there any legal requirement for an employer to track the hours worked by exempt employees?

There's a battle brewing at work between the time and attendence system administration team(that would be me) and HR. HR basically does not want exempt employees to clock in and out. The system would only be used to track vacation, sick, and holiday leave. There would be no record if an exempt employee actualy worked on a given date, which I can see causing issues with workmens comp claims.

I think it's a bad idea for many reasons.  My boss doesn't like it either as he likes to have detailed records of the time he works. What kind of ammo can I pass the boss man for when he goes into battle with HR? Tactical nukes would be nice but I'll settle for legal stuff.

There is actually good reason NOT to track hours worked by exempt employees. If you do, the status of the exempt employee can be called into question resulting in having to pay fines and beaucoup back pay.

Exception time reporting is a much better idea: saves the exempt employees from the hassle of clocking in / out, plus you don't expose yourself to the issues above.

I'm a salaried employee and the only time I enter time on my computerized time card is for paid time off (vacation, sick or personal).  Never saw a problem with it.

It may depend on your industry.  Some clients may require it.

What about Workman's comp issues?

How would they know I was working when I got hit by a bus vs on a lunch break?

Or how could HR discipline someone for being consistently late, leaving early or taking 2 hour lunches if there is no record? Or are these non issues for exempt people?

I was an exempt employee. We had to report our time but we were told to report no more than 40 hours a week. We were required to complete the job no matter how much time was needed.

Quoted: What about Workmens comp issues? How would they know I was working when I got hit by a bus vs on a lunch break?

ETR (exception time reporting) assumes you are working unless otherwise recorded.

Quoted: What about Workman's comp issues? How would they know I was working when I got hit by a bus vs on a lunch break? Or how could HR discipline someone for being consistently late, leaving early or taking 2 hour lunches if there is no record? Or are these non issues for exempt people?

An exempt employee is not paid by the hours they work, but by the tasks they get done.

Quoted: Quoted: What about Workmens comp issues? How would they know I was working when I got hit by a bus vs on a lunch break? ETR (exception time reporting) assumes you are working unless otherwise recorded.

So hypothetically, I go out to lunch with a group of co-workers who are non-exempts we get into an accident I get workmens comp(I'm exempt and there would be no record of my time) and they don't because they were clocked out for lunch? That doesn't seem right

As long as I get my work done, my boss does not care weather I work 20 or 87 hours a week.  

Some weeks require way more work than others.  My good management sees this

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: What about Workmens comp issues? How would they know I was working when I got hit by a bus vs on a lunch break? ETR (exception time reporting) assumes you are working unless otherwise recorded. So hypothetically, I go out to lunch with a group of co-workers who are non-exempts we get into an accident I get workmens comp(I'm exempt and there would be no record of my time) and they don't because they were clocked out for lunch? That doesn't seem right

Everyone was at lunch.  A salaried person isn't working at lunch unless it's a lunch meeting.

There are legal implications to exempt vs. non-exempt employment.

As one poster already mentioned, start tracking an exempt person's time on the clock and they can claim to be non-exempt in function then it is a fight over them being owed OT for hours worked over 40, they were have not been compensated for.

As yet another poster already mentioned, if you are exempt it does not matter if it takes you more than 40 hours to do the work - you work over and get paid the same.

The relevant regulations are the FLSA and the classification of jobs

Special rules do apply to exempt employees especially about arrival to work.

In a broad over generalization people responsible for managing people are exempt with rare exceptions.

As far as your concerns regarding a person being at work, do you not have security ID scans or computer log-on times that can be utilized to determine if the person were at work a particular day?

Quoted: As far as your concerns regarding a person being at work, do you not have security ID scans or computer log-on times that can be utilized to determine if the person were at work a particular day?

Short answer, no.

I'm sure with some digging around that information can be obtained if it exists but I know I/T will not dig for that information(this came up before).

BTW: we are talking about 3500 employees (exempt and non exempts) which will go up to about 9600 start of next year(company mergers).

In my first few jobs in the civilian world I was exempt and never saw a timecard.  The only reason we started seeing them in the DoD contract world was for accounting time against contracts.

Your HR people are right in this, if there is no real reason to do it, don't.  Just make damn sure you accurately classify exempts and non-exempts.

As far as getting run over by a truck, the person's boss should be able to account for them being off the premises as work or not.  And in most cases if they aren't actually there and working, they aren't working NO WC.