We have 12 software engineers and are all exempt. We are a private software development company, can you tell me if its illegal to offer comp time to exempt employees.

As long as you are certain they are exempt.

Comp time is legal, but not required, for exempt employees.

As long as you are certain they are exempt.

Comp time is legal, but not required, for exempt employees.


Not required for exempt employees? so you can offer exempt employees comp time? I though providing an exempt employee with CTO will likely destroy that employee’s exempt status.

There's no law prohibiting employer to offer comp time, this up to the employer to offer as an additional time off, just be clear and precise when its’ placed in the company policy.

Not required for exempt employees? so you can offer exempt employees comp time? I though providing an exempt employee with CTO will likely destroy that employee’s exempt status.


We need to be careful here. There are specfic rules that Exempt employees must follow. If we are talking about Salaried Exempt employees, those rules are federal DOL regulations 29 CFR 541.602. "Comp time" is not mentioned anywhere in those rules. The Salaried Exempt rules are unrelated to Comp Time. The only place "comp time" is actually mentioned in federal law is for certain governmental employees.

The employer can setup any made up comp time rules they want as long as these "comp time" rules in no way violation any of the very real FLSA rules.

Employers can require any employee hold up their hand to go to the restroom, or wear ballet slippers and tutus to work, or complete pink time sheets with green ink. These are collectively called "work rules" and are legal to the extent that these rules made up by employers do not violate any actual laws.

My advise for whatever it is worth is to read the 541.602 rules and make sure that the employer's made up "comp time" rules do not violate these very real FLSA regulations.

http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_541/29CFR541.602.htm

We need to be careful here. There are specfic rules that Exempt employees must follow. If we are talking about Salaried Exempt employees, those rules are federal DOL regulations 29 CFR 541.602. "Comp time" is not mentioned anywhere in those rules. The Salaried Exempt rules are unrelated to Comp Time. The only place "comp time" is actually mentioned in federal law is for certain governmental employees.

The employer can setup any made up comp time rules they want as long as these "comp time" rules in no way violation any of the very real FLSA rules.

Employers can require any employee hold up their hand to go to the restroom, or wear ballet slippers and tutus to work, or complete pink time sheets with green ink. These are collectively called "work rules" and are legal to the extent that these rules made up by employers do not violate any actual laws.

My advise for whatever it is worth is to read the 541.602 rules and make sure that the employer's made up "comp time" rules do not violate these very real FLSA regulations.

http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_541/29CFR541.602.htm


These are salaried exempt employees and according to your DOL Link " an
exempt employee must receive the full salary for any week in which the
employee performs any work without regard to the number of days or
hours worked." Which in my interpretation means exempt from overtime. your responses have been very helpful BTW ;)

As used in common parlance, "comp time" means time off to compensate the employee for extra hours used. "Comp time" in this sense is illegal for non-exempt employees except in very limited circumstances, because it can result in them not receiving overtime that is due them by law.

However, exempt employees are expected to work whatever hours it takes for them to complete the job, with no legal expectation of overtime. If an employer wants to let an exempt employee take time off after they've worked a particularly long project, or whatever, they may do so without it affecting their exempt status.

What you may be thinking of is that if an employer chooses to provide OVERTIME to an exempt employee, in some instances THAT can destroy the exemption. But the hours worked or not worked does not.