How to Motivate Workers to Turn In Their Time Cards

Q.I have been placed in charge of supervising our company’s payroll department. The company requires each employee--salaried or not--to submit weekly time cards, but I have discovered that many time cards are being turned in late or not at all.

We are considering several actions to get employees to submit their cards. These include withholding paychecks until the next pay period, not applying any overtime hours toward 401(k) eligibility, or taking offending employees off direct deposit for the pay period.

What would be the legal ramifications of these? And where can I get information (pamphlets, books, etc.) on these issues?

--M.E., Agoura Hills

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A.None of the three suggested solutions seems workable.

Withholding paychecks is not permitted under the California Labor Code.

Not applying any overtime hours toward 401(k) eligibility could create at least two problems. It may be inconsistent with the terms of the 401(k) plan, exposing the company to liability for breach of fiduciary duty or jeopardizing the tax-qualified status of the plan. If your company requires time cards from exempt and nonexempt employees, only nonexempt employees would be affected by overtime hours’ not applying toward 401(k) eligibility.

Changing to and from direct deposit frequently would probably create an administrative nightmare for the company.

You may want to consider giving employees disciplinary warnings for failing to submit time cards. If an employee still fails to comply, the company could then take that employee off direct deposit for a longer period, such as six months.

You could also inform employees that, ultimately, the disciplinary warnings may affect their overall evaluations. Assuming that pay increases are tied to performance evaluations, that might do the trick.

One good source of information is the California Labor Commissioner’s office. It can tell you whether anything you are considering will violate wage and hour laws.

--Josephine Staton Tucker

Employment law attorney

Morrison & Foerster

Uniforms for Exempt Staffers

Q. I am an exempt employee in a company division that has direct contact with our customers. The company provided shirts as a uniform, but it now advises us that we must wear a specific color of slacks.

Many of us had purchased slacks of a different color. Since the company now considers slacks a part of the uniform, is it required to furnish them?

--B.G., Lake Arrowhead

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A. Probably not, for two reasons.

First, unless the required slacks are such an unusual color that they could not be worn on other jobs or for non-work purposes, it is doubtful that they would be considered a “uniform” under California law.

Second, the law only requires an employer to provide and maintain uniforms that the employer requires nonexempt employees to wear. There is no such requirement for exempt employees.

--James J. McDonald Jr.

Attorney, Fisher & Phillips

Labor law instructor, UC Irvine

Termination With No Severance Pay

Q. Until recently, I worked as a speech pathologist at a hospital. Three of us were told that we were being let go because the hospital was hiring a private contractor to provide speech therapy services at a lower rate.

Because two of us had been paid at a per diem rate for years, the hospital said it was under no obligation to pay any severance. One day we simply were told without warning that it was to be our last day. A personnel employee demanded that we hand over our identification badges, keys and parking cards, and that we remove our belongings immediately from our offices. We were told that out final paycheck would include two-hour “reporting-to-work” compensation.

The third therapist was on the regular payroll and received benefits, but she also was terminated with no warning. She also did not receive any severance pay.

We wonder if the hospital is guilty of wrongful termination.

--J.P., Agoura Hills

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A. Probably not. Unless you can establish that the employer has violated a state policy, such as some statute, you will not be able to bring a wrongful termination claim.

Furthermore, unless the employer has made an agreement with its employees to pay severance upon termination, or unless it has a practice of doing so, you would probably not be able to make a successful argument that severance was owed.

There is no state or federal law requiring that employees receive severance pay. It is left completely up to employers to decide whether they wish to provide severance as part of the employment arrangement.

--Diane J. Crumpacker

Management law attorney

Fried, Bird & Crumpacker

If you have a question about an on-the-job situation, please mail it to Shop Talk, Los Angeles Times, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626; dictate it to (714) 966-7873; or e-mail it to shoptalk@latimes.com. Include your initials and hometown. The Shop Talk column is designed to answer questions of general interest. It should not be construed as legal advice.