Calculating work hours is one of the most challenging duties and one that managers sometimes put off until the last minute. This, however, does not have to be the case with work hours calculator.
Determining the hours your team members work can help you ensure they get paid the correct amount. There are many methods you can use to track and calculate hours worked. You should choose the right timekeeping method and teach your team members how to use it so all hours worked are accounted for.
We’ll go through each of those issues in detail in the sections below. We’ll also teach you how to compute a hypothetical employee’s hours worked step by step and make your work life even more effortless by expediting the scheduling process.
What Do Work Hours Mean?
Work hours are defined by the US Department of Labor as follows: The amount of time an employee must be on duty, either on the employer’s premises or at any other specified location.
The most crucial thing to remember is that an employee’s time card (or whatever format the record of hours worked takes) is a legally binding document. It can thus be used as evidence in court procedures.
The IRS can also request and reference the record of time worked to determine compliance with local, state, and federal labour regulations. As a result, you must keep accurate records as much as possible.
Work Hours: Full-Time vs Part-Time vs Overtime
Work hours are divided into three groups:
- Full-time
- Part-time
- Overtime
We’ll start with the full-time job because it impacts the other two types.
Working Hours: Full-Time
Employers may set standard work hours at any number they wanted throughout the first part of the twentieth century. As a result, employees may be asked to work 50, 60, or even 70 hours per week.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed in 1940 by the federal government to limit the number of hours employees might work per week.
Businesses could only ask their employees to work 40 hours per week under the FLSA. Employees were entitled to additional pay if they worked longer hours (discussed in the overtime section).
Businesses might define full-time jobs in any way they want. However, the FLSA did not define full-time work. It simply imposed a weekly restriction on how many hours an employee might work.
The majority chose to work as many hours as possible and set a benchmark of 40. However, some businesses have chosen lesser numbers as full-time, such as 36, 32, or even 30 hours per week.
No law specifies what defines full-time employment. Only a maximum of 40 hours per week can be worked before an employee enters the overtime zone.
This gives the employer a lot of flexibility in setting up a work schedule that benefits both the individual and the company.
Working Hours: Part-Time Work
Working as a barista in a bright, spacious coffee shop Part-time work hours are not regulated in the same way that full-time work hours are.
What it means to be a part-time employee in your company depends on how you define full-time work. Remember that the FLSA only established a weekly maximum number of hours worked. It made no distinction between full-time and part-time employment.
Part-time is simply any number less than 40 hours if full-time is defined as 40 hours. You can choose from 20 hours, 24 hours, and even 39 hours.
According to management, part-time work hours are usually half of the full-time hours (or maybe just a bit more).
So, if your firm requires 40 hours per week of full-time work, part-time work could range from 20 to 28 hours per week.
Employees begin to question the difference between the two designations when part-time hours reach the mid- or even high-thirties.
If your full-time employees have benefits such as health insurance, vacation days, and other advantages, part-time employees who work 32, 35, or 38 hours per week may grow discontent because they perform almost as much work without the benefits.
Working Hours: Overtime
The federal government limited how many hours a week (40) employers might expect their employees to work at regular pay when the FLSA was established in 1940. Employers were now compelled to offer extra remuneration in overtime to employees who worked more than 40 hours.
Overtime pay is usually 1.5 times the employee’s regular hourly wage. “Time-and-a-half” is another name for this number.
So, if an employee is paid $10 per hour, overtime pay is $15 per hour ($10 x 1.5). If another employee is paid $20 per hour, overtime pay is $30 per hour ($20 x 1.5).
The gross compensation for an employee earning $10 per hour and working 40 hours per week is $400 ($10 x 40). If they work more than 40 hours in a week, you must reward them at your overtime rate.
The gross compensation for an employee who works 40 hours and 15 minutes (40.25 hours) is:
($10 x 40) + ($15 x 0.25) = Gross Pay
$400 + $3.75 = $400 gross pay
$403.75 gross pay
In the “how-to” section below, we’ll go through this in greater detail.
It’s worth emphasizing that you should keep meticulous records of all hours spent, particularly over time. The cost of paying regular overtime rates builds up quickly and has a substantial influence on all elements of your organization, including:
- Budget for Labor
- Overhead
- Profit
- Taxes
When at all possible, avoid working overtime. If a full-time employee is scheduled to work more than 40 hours, consider scheduling a low-hour part-time employee and giving the full-time employee some time off.
This will provide additional experience to the part-time employee, assist the full-time employee stay rested, and keep your overtime to a minimum.
Let’s get into the step-by-step procedure of estimating work hours for a hypothetical employee now that you know what they are, how part-time and full-time work affects them, and the need to keep accurate records.
How to Use a Work Hours Calculator?
We’ll make up a fictional employee named Misty For this experiment. Misty Works in a restaurant and is primarily responsible for customer service. This position pays $10 an hour. However, when a substitute is needed, she works as a hostess. This position pays $12 an hour. In step four, you’ll understand why this is crucial.
Decide how your company will track employee hours:
When it comes down to it, there are various ways to keep track of work hours:
- A sign-in sheet that is written
- A clock that prints the time on time cards made of paper.
- An electronic tracking system
- Using An Employee Monitoring tool
Each work time calculator has different combinations, such as paper time cards for employees and a mechanical time clock. You can also use Employee monitoring tools like EmpMonitor.
But in our example circumstance, let’s pretend you’re utilizing a traditional time clock and paper time cards. Misty Would enter the break room, take her card from the holder, and punch the time clock. The time on the card would then be recorded by the time clock: 8:58 a.m.
That brings us to the next crucial stage in the work-hours calculation.
Decide on a time format:
This may seem unusual, but the format you choose will make your life easier in the long run. Standard and military are the two most popular time formats.
When you look at most clocks, you’ll see the time from one to twelve in standard time format. To distinguish between morning and afternoon, normal time necessitates the addition of “a.m.” or “p.m.”
Military time, like standard time, counts the morning hours (e.g., 7:24 a.m., 9:11 a.m., 11:47 a.m., etc.). Military time begins counting after 12:59 p.m. by adding an hour to twelve. For instance, 1:00 p.m. in average time is 13:00 in military time. Unlike the standard time format, you’ll notice that you don’t need the “p.m.” to indicate afternoon. That’s because 01:00 is written for the other one o’clock (in the early hours of the morning).
Suppose Misty Came in at 9:00 a.m. and left at 5:00 p.m. (standard format). Because you can’t just subtract one number from the other in this scenario, you’ll have to conduct some indirect arithmetic to calculate the hours worked.
Let’s pretend Misty arrived at 9:00 a.m. (military time) and left at 17:00. Calculating the hours worked is as simple as subtracting nine from seventeen to arrive at eight. That day, Misty worked for eight hours.
Establish a Rounding Policy:
It’s rare that all of your staff clock in and out at the exact hour. Some people will arrive early, while others will arrive late. A rounding policy is used in this situation.
Keeping note of hours worked in fifteen-minute intervals is recommended by the US Department of Labor. Employee time is rounded down from one to seven minutes, and time from eight to fourteen minutes is rounded up.
Misty, for example, worked for eight hours and four minutes if she arrived at 07:58 and left at 17:02. That works out to a total of eight hours. Mistyworked for eight hours and twelve minutes if she came at 07:58 and left at 17:10. Eight hours and fifteen minutes would be the total time.
If necessary, sort work hours into categories:
Employees in various areas, such as the restaurant industry, might work multiple jobs at varying pay rates. Misty Works as a server for $10 per hour, but she also works as a hostess for $12 per hour.
When this happens, it’s critical to divide each block of time into multiple pay rates so she may be compensated appropriately. When you skip this stage, it becomes a legal concern, so we recommend classifying work if it relates to your company.
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Wrapping Up:
Now we have ways to use the work hours calculator, but these traditional methods are time taking and not very effective. The easiest way to calculate employee hours worked in your company is to use an employee time tracking tool such as EmpMonitor. This can help you easily collect & verify timesheets, calculate employee wages, and ensure employees productivity.
