Market Areas > Human Resources > Telecommuting Policy

Why Telecommuters Sue: Avoid Costly Wage and Hour Claims

Course Description:

According to WorldatWork, telecommuting is up more than 40 percent in one year and continues to grow with more than 12 million employees working from home. 

In today’s economy, it’s a win-win for employers and employees. Telecommuting reduces costs for employers while giving employees greater flexibility and benefits.

But, it’s also given employers something else to worry about: lawsuits.

That's right, employees are suing. Over wage and hour issues. Reimbursement of travel costs on days they have to come into the office. Even, potentially, over safety matters.

Giant telecommuting lawsuits are all over the news and heading up, up, up! Last year, Farmers Insurance was hit with a $90 million jury verdict when its home-based workers sued for overtime issues. IBM settled a comparable case for $65 million.

Find out how to avoid costly litigation and better manage your telecommuters in this need-to-know audio conference. During this comprehensive session, our expert faculty will present an overview of the good, bad and ugly of telecommuting arrangements, agreements and policies, as well as a summary of how wage and hour requirements apply to telecommuting employees.

Course Highlights:

• What compensable work is and how to manage it when employees work from home
• Best practices for implementing a time keeping system to avoid off-the-clock work claims
• Meal and break requirements
• How to handle travel time for days when telecommuters must come in to the office
• Exempt status dos and don’ts
• State specific compliance for telecommuters
• Overtime issues for telecommuters
• Examples of other Wage and Hour issues for telecommuters and how to avoid them
• And much more

Featured Faculty:

Douglas H. Duerr, Partner, Elarbee, Thompson, Sapp & Wilson LLP

Douglas focuses on preventive advice and counseling on a wide range of employment and labor issues, while providing experienced counsel to employers in litigation and administrative proceedings.

Douglas has worked with a number of restaurant chains on "front of the house" and "back of the house" issues. He has defended numerous hospitality employers in a variety of states in connection with alleged wage and hour and wage payment claims.

Douglas has extensive, nationwide experience in helping employers prepare restrictive covenants and develop protections for trade secrets in many states including California, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas. In addition to such preventive steps, Douglas helps employers protect against unfair competition by former employees and prevent the misappropriation of trade secrets and confidential information.

With over 15 years of experience defending collective actions, Douglas has a long history of defending employers in the manufacturing, retail, and the hospitality industries against claims of misclassification as well as claims for failure to pay minimum wage. Because of such experience, he is frequently asked to speak on wage and hour compliance and regularly advises employers on issues, such as overtime, minimum wage and exempt status. Douglas is not only a Contributor to the treatise Kearns, Fair Labor Standards Act (1rst ed. 1999), he has also served many years since then as a Chapter Editor for the annual updates, with a focus on chapters dealing with litigation. Douglas is able to use his extensive experience effectively in defending employers against collective actions by focusing quickly on class membership issues, fundamental wage hour issues, and complex litigation strategies.

MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE:

We're so confident you'll get what you want out of this conference that we'll refund every penny if you're not completely satisfied. No questions asked! It's 100% risk-free!

pricing:

Your CD recording includes the complete audio conference presentation, audience Q&A and presentation materials.

APPROVED FOR RECERTIFICATION CREDIT:

HRCI - Receive 1.25 recertification credit hours toward PHR and SPHR recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI). For more information about certification or recertification, please visit the HRCI homepage at www.hrci.org. "The use of this seal is not an endorsement by the HR Certification Institute of the quality of the program. It means that this program has met the HR Certification Institute's criteria to be pre-approved for recertification credit."

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