DOL: Workers taking online training course at home must be paid
March 17, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Budgets and spending, Compliance, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
The Department of Labor published a new opinion letter, giving some guidance on whether or not employees need to be paid for time they spend taking online training courses at home.
An employer asked the DOL about this situation:
Employees are offered an optional training course on a computer application they use to do their work. Everyone is already trained on the basics and has enough skills to perform their duties. But the optional course provides advanced knowledge, which lets them work more efficiently.
The training includes online courses employees are expected to take at home on their own time. Most of the employees taking the course are nonexempt — do they need to be paid for what they do at home?
The DOL’s answer: Yes.
Time spent attending training doesn’t have to be paid if all of these criteria are met:
- the training occurs outside the employee’s normal working hours
- attendance is voluntary
- the information learned is not directly related to an employee’s job, and
- the employee doesn’t do any work during the session.
In this example, the training was directly related to how employees did their jobs — it helped them perform their work more easily — so the time had to be paid.
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Tags: department of labor, nonexempt, work at home
March 24th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Wow-this could get interesting. Theoretically, people going for advanced degrees attending brick and mortar classes–woudl that be paid as well? While these on line classes will help the ee be more productiv,e they would not lose their job if they did not take it. Same for bachelor’s, master’s program–not required to keep the current job, but needed to move up….yikes!
March 24th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Something must be missing, because many people with licenses and credentials (teachers, drug and alcohol counselors, etc.) are required to have so many CEU’s per year to maintain their license/credential. Without the license or credentail, they cannot work. Does that mean that they have to be paid to take classes online (or at the local community college or university) to maintain their credentials?
March 25th, 2009 at 11:20 am
I concur that something is missing. Further, the original message conflicts… 1st paragraph states optional training and the 2nd states employees “are expected”. I would think that if an employer has an “expectation” that the employee complete the training then they would be answerable to wage and hourly. I do think that the on-line training may be something seperate from the degree situation. I’m a little surprised at DOL’s response of the yes without further information. DC
March 27th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Delilah, I believe it means if they choose to take the “optional” training, they are expected to take it at home, outside of their normal working hours. It does sound conflicting though.