I am working on updating our employee handbook. Right now the "work day" is not really defined. What is states is simply states All work will be considered to be performed on the work day you first began work, even if you work into the next calendar day. Is this suffiencient? It was defined as such, so that OT would be paid for all shifts over 8 hours. Please advise.

California overtime rules can be found at the following website. Basically under federal law each employee has a specific 168 hour work week. It does not have to be exactly the same work week for all employees, but practically having different workweek definitions for each employee would be extremely difficult. When you define the workweek under the federal rules, then under CA rules, you just defined the workday.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_Overtime.htm

Thank you for your reply. However, it really doesn't answer my question. My question is whether or not what we are stating All work will be considered to be performed on the work day you first began work, even if you work into the next calendar day. suffient for defining the working day or do we need to put a specific 24 hours period to the work day. Like should is state the work day is the 24 hours period between 3am - 3am.

It would be better if you defined specifically what the work day is. Most employers use 12:01 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. but it doesn't have to be. With the CA daily overtime requirement it's best to narrow things down as best you can, in my opinion.

FYI, the letter of the law is that the workweek is 168 consecutive hours beginning on a day/time certain. Now, having said that, do employers often attach all hours worked on a shift to the day the shift began? Sure they do. It is not the letter of the law, but unless it results in overtime not being calculated when it should be, honestly, the federal DOL (and, I imagine, the DLSE) is not going to care.

But, so there is no question at all, pick a day/time. 24 hours later, the next workday starts and the clock starts ticking again, even if that time is in the middle of an employee's shift.

I think I will make the simple change it to a specific time (most likely 3am - 3am, just so it is at a time when no one should be working).

Great idea, Christa. ;)