A reader writes:
I’m a public librarian, so a big part of my job is helping people do work on our public computers. This ranges from showing people how to print to more in-depth questions on software that I have to puzzle my way through. I don’t mind any of that!
I have noticed more recently in the last year, though, that people with new jobs will come in and need help filling out what is essentially new hire paperwork: tax forms, demographic info, health insurance stuff, etc., or even have video trainings to work through. Shouldn’t this be something that’s done on their first day of work? Often they have questions about these forms that I obviously can’t answer because I don’t work for that company. I don’t know for sure that people aren’t getting paid for doing these but it definitely seems like that from our patrons’ comments.
Is that legal? If not, any suggestions on what I can say to patrons to make them aware of that fact?
It’s pretty normal for employers to send new hire paperwork to people before they start and not to pay them for the time they spend filling it out … but whether or not that’s legal isn’t as clear-cut as it should be. Broadly speaking, employers do need to pay people for all time they spend on work, which includes on-boarding. But, for example, this HR publication argues that it comes down to whether you’re required to complete the paperwork before going to work (in which case it would have to be paid) or whether it’s only voluntary to do it ahead of time and you have the option of completing it on work time (in which case, they say, an employer could argue it doesn’t need to be paid). On the other hand, this legal site says it all needs to be paid, voluntary or not, since the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires you to be paid for all time you are “suffered or permitted” to work.
The first source also points out that the federal Fair Labor Standards Act does say that “infrequent and insignificant periods of time beyond the scheduled working hours, which cannot as a practical matter be precisely recorded for payroll purposes, may be disregarded,” so if the paperwork is quick, it could fall under the exception.
The video trainings, however, are much clearer than the paperwork question: if work-specific trainings are required to be completed before your first day, that’s work time and needs to be paid.
All that said … regardless of the law, it’s extremely common for employers to expect new hires to complete new hire paperwork on their own time. Ideally everyone would push back on that and assert their legal rights. In reality, most people aren’t going to want to start a new job that way and won’t take the risk of objecting to a practice that other new hires haven’t complained about (and which employers are often used to considering “pre-employment” and thus not paid work, although the FLSA doesn’t make that distinction).
In other words, in a culture that sees new hire paperwork as a normal activity to complete on your own time without pay — regardless of whether that should be the case — a lot of people would find it too risky to push back on, particularly for the likely small amount of money involved. So in your shoes, as someone who won’t have enough information to judge what the potential risk for any given patron could be, I’d leave it alone.
