I recently discovered on my paychecks that my ot hours are being figured with some crazy formula determined by the payroll company used by my job. It is not time and a half at all. the way it is figured I recieve 31 cents over the regular time and half for the 2nd shift which is 7pm-11pm and 18 cents less the regular time and half for the 3rd shift which is 11pm-7am. Sounds great right, wrong. The majority of my ot hours are 3rd shift. The way I have calculated my checks, I am losing between $2-$5 dollars each check. Now if this is the case and every employee that works night shift ot is losing this amount, where is it going? And is this a legal way to figure out ot? By the way, I have been to payroll questioning them. They gave me a copy of the employee manual which states that OT is "time and a half" and also gave me the calculation for OT provided by the payroll company...??...

And what was the formula they gave you?

The general rule for overtime is certainly time-and-a-half-on-hours-worked-past-40-in-the-work-week. However, there are many possible exceptions.
- Just to be certain, are you legally an employee? Are taxes withheld from your payments and do you get a W-2 at year end?
- Does your employer do at least $500K in annual sales each year or engage in interstate commerce?
- What exactly is your employer's line of work?
- What are your specific job duties?

I think the issue might just be shift differentials, so the "regular rate of pay" used to figure OT is different from the regular wage of the hours worked over 40.

Ask the payroll person to explain it to you. The "payroll company" only calculates pay the way the company tells them to set it up.