Banking Hours? Anyone?

[tuba]

Has anyone here ever worked for a company where any hours worked over 40 in a week get "banked" for use at a later date, like when things slow down before cooling or heating season hit? I had never heard of this before and was curious how it works and if it is legal........

[jbooker56]

I banked hours for years. It requires trust in your employer and to be honest it probably is not the smartest thing to do. It is your money and if you were to take your extra money and invest it for days or times when there is no work it would make more sense. I was too lazy and it certainly cost me money.

[hvac wiz 79]

can't say i like that at all. if I'm working more than 40 i want my time & a half .. hell if I'm working past 4:30 i want my time & a half. what happens if you get laid off anyway, fired, or even worse hurt ... do they come out with that "banked" fee ? ...

[Retread]

It's not legal. over 40 hours worked must be paid at time and a half unless you are on Salary. Also employer to get out of OT salaried person must spend something like 60% of their time in supervision of others not doing the work them selves.

[freemind]

can't say i like that at all. if I'm working more than 40 i want my time & a half .. hell if I'm working past 4:30 i want my time & a half. what happens if you get laid off anyway, fired, or even worse hurt ... do they come out with that "banked" fee ? ...

I agree. NO WAY I would let my OT get "banked". Not a good idea. The only one making out is the employer. You get no interest on your money, lose OT pay, and get no benefit from it.

I have never work under such a situation, nor would I.

[blitz]

yea, no. unless it's clearly marked as banked OT. paid in OT time but not taken out immediately. I have used it in the past as to give my self some kind of christmas bonus.

[AFoster]

My dad worked for the state of Illinois, and he would bank his overtime. How it would work is the employee would specify when they wanted to withdraw (up to twice a year). And how much to bank.

Example he would withdraw once in June and in December. He also only banked OT after 4 hours.

The downfall was that he would not gain any interest on his money.

[tuba]

Thanks for the replies. I don't have all the details yet, but it almost sounds like the pay is really salary, but they tell the guys they are hourly so they hustle during the day. I will have to find out more about it.

[btuhack]

I worked for a comm'l/ind outfit at one point that banked hours. Do a 8 hr job in 6 and bank the 2. Every 6 months the workers got 10% of "their" net (each worker had a profit and loss sheet)plus their banked hours. It lacked transparency, we had no control of the "overhead" % or what was given back to customers as warranty. Lazy office workers were despised, they were sucking off the field guys tit with no accountability.

The boss wanted us to do PM's on weekends at one point, if it wasn't going to be billed as 1.5 time, then my overtime would have come out of my own P&L check...stupid. What could he do besides pout and suck his thumb.

The general idea was that the worker was partially compensated on performance, but in reality was canned if the numbers were consistently low regardless of what he was willing to accept.

Couldn't keep track of it all to say if it was completely legit or legal, the owner was a sneaky little squirrel.

[dec]

ya I know most say no way but I remember when I was a lot younger and did comercial out of town work ( stuck in little towns in middle of nowhere ) I was allowed to bank hours. Now I was all for it being I was working long hours and weekends being in the middle of nowhere there was nothing to do and I didn't want to drive back hundreds of miles on a weekend being it would all be drive time for a few hours of time at home.

I had a choice work 40 being there was no point of paying a guy over time if they didn't have to or ...... I could work as many hours as I want and bank them. It was an honor system being a lot of the time I was only one on job site after hours. I just kept record of banked hours and they could easily tell that from the progress of the job you were getting a lot more done then possible at 40 hours a week.

Now at that age with no real friends or relations where I was living , it was all about learning and making money. I had no interest in setting in a bar in a 2 bar town town that rolled up the streets at 7 pm ......and I did a lot of jobs in towns like those .

Yes it could have been a bad deal in a lot of guys opinion but back then it was a better deal for me being and it really got me set up to eventally go on my own. Honestly think it would have been a whole lot differant if I was just a guy putting in 40 a week and setting home. Your never going to be successful that way.

Better just go get a union job and stick to it in that case

[dec]

Oh thought I better throw this in being I left it out of last post. that shop did pay over time if they had to have you work over 40 being they really needed it done then. It was just a choice to bank it if it was you wanted more hours of work there was no hurry on :grin2

A lot of times it was great for 3 - 5 day weekends and I think things were a lot more lax back over 35 years ago and less worried of getting sued

[fv_tom]

If you are banking overtime...then it must be taken as overtime. IE 8 hours of overtime translates to 12 hours banked time.

[dec]

Well thats why back then they would have just sent you home and gave the extra hours to someone else. That's ok tho ........ you had a choice

[Six]

Has anyone here ever worked for a company where any hours worked over 40 in a week get "banked" for use at a later date, like when things slow down before cooling or heating season hit? I had never heard of this before and was curious how it works and if it is legal........

Its called "comp time" and I've heard of companies doing it. The employee gets the shaft because usually its 1 for 1.

What happens if you get laid off or move on to a better job ? Do they compensate you for all that OT ??

Nope.

[zw17]

I used to do it at a residential company. 1hr OT was comped at 1.5hrs vacation. It was put on our checks weekly so it was all above the boards.

Worked out great for taking long weekends.

[osiyo]

Has anyone here ever worked for a company where any hours worked over 40 in a week get "banked" for use at a later date, like when things slow down before cooling or heating season hit? I had never heard of this before and was curious how it works and if it is legal........

Back in the 90's I worked for a company which allowed such and had provisions for it.

Personally, I liked it.

But, keep in mind, it was a VOLUNTARY thing. They did not force you to bank the time, under their rules they could not force you. And it was all above board. That is it was tracked and accounted for formally.

i.e. When I worked any extra time I had an option. I could simply record it and count the time as regular time for the 8 hrs, plus overtime done after that. And get paid accordingly. Or, when filling out my time sheet I could record 8 hrs as regular pay, then record time after that using a code which meant I was banking those hours. I'd get a check for the hours I claimed pay for, and a computer generated form indicating I had N number of banked hours.

Banked hours could be carried over week to week, month to month, but NOT from year to year. If you hadn't used those banked hours at the end of the year, you got an extra pay check for the unused hours.

As an example:
Monday: 8 hrs regular pay claimed. 4 more hours banked.
Tuesday: 8 hrs regular pay. 2 more hours banked.
Wednesday: 8 hrs regular pay.
Thursday: 8 hrs regular pay. 2 more hours banked.
Friday: Insert 8 hrs banked time here. Gone fishing.

Fact was, I preferred that method. Would rather have the long weekend as versus the extra pay. Besides, as my wife once pointed out to me, she does the family accounting/book keeping, the extra taxes I paid due to actually collecting the money at overtime rates were such that effectively I wasn't pocketing 1.5 times my hourly rate.

Now, could I have found use for the extra money? Sure. But did I NEED the extra money I'd have gotten for claiming the over time? Nope. In fact I specifically kept our household budget managed such that we NEVER had to count upon over time hours to make ends meet and pay the bills. Would have done that even if I'd collected the over time pay. I've seen to many guys start counting upon over time pay as necessary income. And have it come back and bite em in the a**.

And in truth, I much preferred and enjoyed extra days off.

Heck, I had weeks where by Wednesday ... I was done. 24 hrs claimed for regular pay. Another 16 banked. Called boss and said, "Okay, I'm done for the week. Gone fishing."

However, that was back then, working for that company.

I'd be cautious these days about such things. Folks I work for now don't have such formalized rules and system. So any time I work extra hours that'd normally be classed as overtime, but instead elect to defer the hours and put em on another day's hourly reporting as regular time ... it's an unofficial "gentleman's agreement" between myself and certain guys I work for. Guy's I specifically trust to keep their end of the bargain. Since there is no "official" way in this company's accounting system to do such things.

But there are others in the company, who if I work on their projects, I'd not trust to keep their end of the bargain. So I either simply stop work at the end of regular hours, or would claim the overtime pay.

Personally, my opinion has not changed over the years ... I'd still rather have the extra days off as versus the extra 50% (minus the extra taxes). However the folks I work for don't have the formal system the old employer had. So these days such arrangements are under the table, and based upon trust. And I don't trust just anybody and everybody. A few of the various folks I do work for, certainly not all of them.

[freemind]

I'd still rather have the extra days off as versus the extra 50% (minus the extra taxes).

My OT pay meets or exceeds my regular hourly pay a year. I don't care for all the OT, but we have to do what needs done, right?

I can't imagine letting 1/3 of my OT pay evaporate because I would rather have the time off. I worked hard for that money, and it's mine.

Thats in the same vein as working 12 hours two days in a row, and getting the third day off so OT pay is avoided.

No thanks.

[wahoo]

If you are an hourly paid employee, don't think this is legal anymore. If you are salaried, then don't really know about legality, but imagine that it would be some way to compensate for needing to work past quiting time as generally salaried is not paid any O.T..I'd NEVER try to get hourly employees to go along with "banked" overtime as you'd get an audit from wage and hour folks the first guy you fired, regardless of reason.

[nuclear rabbit]

I think state employment laws trump any "banking" arrangement an employer would like to set up. Overtime is overtime and according to state law usually should be paid as such.

[Redenius]

The way I look at it is this: if I work 32 hours on one week I want paid 32 hours. If I worked 45 hours one week I want paid 40 hours and 5 hours over time. I give you an honest working week I want paid an honest working week. Moving hours from one week to another is against the law. Having them bank hours will make it easier to screw you. If your cutting off hours from extra hours worked on your last day of the week is fine and not against the law.