I work for a company and our work week is as follows,
{week one: Mon-Thurs 7:00am -4:30pm. Friday 7:00am -3:30pm}
{week two: Mon-Thurs 7:00-4:30 .....off Friday.

But our company "pay period" is as follows :
Mon - Friday till 11:00 am and we carry over the rest of 4 hours to week number two.

So in reality we work 44 hours in week one and 36 in week two, and they are saying that because the pay period ends for week one on 11:00am on Friday that it is ok. And the week two starts at 11:00am on Friday

As a result if we take any PTO time in the first week we are almost sure to lose any OT for the 2nd week. Becuase we didn't "work" 40 hours. EXAMPLE: If I take 8 hours PTO time on the friday i work, Really I am taking 4 hours in work week one and 4 hours in work week two Thus i didn't "work" 40 hours in either week.

My main question is can our "work week" and "pay period" be different. All i know is that we lose out on on ton of OT pay on this schedule. And its even worse if we work our "Friday Off" it take two pays to see the OT and If you miss any work you lose it all. We our not happy about this and is there any thing we can do about it. Thanks for any help?

You get three days in a row off every two weeks and you are complaining?

The schedule your employer has is legal and "work week" is not synonomous with "pay period."

You get three days in a row off every two weeks and you are complaining?

The schedule your employer has is legal and "work week" is not synomous with "pay period."
Yes, believe it or not, there are people who will. I have a job where we work three twelve's Thu, Fri, and Sat, have Sun. off every week and then work three more twelve's Mon, Tue, and Wed. then have seven days off. Believe it or not some clown had a problem with it and filed for overtime comp. whn the pay period went from Wed to Sat. at 23:59 and Sun 0000 to Tue at 2359. Amazing isn't it?

We are not complaining about the hours we see them as a bonus, if we ever got to work them but the fact is the company makes us work tons of O.T. (which I know is legal )including our "Friday off" and thus we need to use the PTO time to get the time off we would have normally had off, after inquiring with HR about returning to a normal 40 (the 9/80 was implemented 2 years ago) hour work week she said "Management as set the following hours for cost effective reasons" in other words we can keep on making you work overtime and you we never have to pay you for it as long as you use you any of your PTO time and that is something to complain about!

I am not following how you.

How are you working tons of overtime and just how does the company avoid paying for it legally?

I see two work weeks with 40 scheduled work hours in each. Work just one hour more than that in either one and there is overtime owed.

You will need to illustrate what happens, because I just don't see the problem.

I will only address this issue:


My main question is can our "work week" and "pay period" be different. All i know is that we lose out on on ton of OT pay on this schedule. And its even worse if we work our "Friday Off" it take two pays to see the OT and If you miss any work you lose it all. We our not happy about this and is there any thing we can do about it. Thanks for any help?

A work week and pay period can be on a different cycle. It is legal to break the period at any point, so long as it is consistent. That is, the employer can not break it on Friday one week and then break it on Saturday the next simply to avoid paying overtime. However, as this employer is not switching it from week to week, this would be a valid pay arrangement.

To state it simply they make us take "paid time off" for any hours scheduled that you don't work. One week they post it as 7 to 4:30 for 5 days as our regular schedule then maybe the following week it is 7:00 to 6:00 for 5 days so if you take any PTO in either week you carry over PTO thus you didn't actualluy work 40 hours and you lose all the over time. For example I had 103 hours in two a week pay period and only 15.5 was OT beacuse i use 1.5 per day to leave at my "real" quiting time. They make use you PTO to cover any hours you didn't work because i was scheduled to work 47.5 hours that week. I shouldn't have to use PTO time if i already have 40 hours for a week just becaused i'm scheduled to work 50 for week one and 40 for week two.. They told us when we switched, we would have to work any scheduled hours, or use PTO time to make up the difference

The law only requires that you receive overtime for any hours physically worked over 40 in the course of the workweek. Since PTO is for time not physically worked, it's perfectly legal to NOT include these hours when determining if overtime exists.

You mention having to use PTO to cover for hours missed when you already have 40 hours in for the week. This is fine also. If your work schedule requires 44 hours and you did not work 44 hours, it's ok to require a worker to apply the difference of which would bring to 44 hours. This is true even if 40 hours were already worked. The number of hours worked is not relevant. What is relevant is the number of scheduled hours NOT worked. I believe this is what you are concerned about. If you are scheduled 5 days of work and in 3 days you work 40 hours, it would still be legal to require you to apply PTO for the 2 shifts missed.

I understand your point. My point is that the policy as it's established is not unlawful. In fact it's quite commonplace.