You arrive 15 minutes early to boot up your computer, log into three different systems, and review your schedule. At the end of the day, you stay late to finish charting or respond to messages that came in during your last appointment. During lunch, you eat at your desk while returning calls. None of this shows up on your paycheck.
This is off-the-clock work — and under federal law, your employer must pay you for every minute of it.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that non-exempt employees be paid for all hours worked, including overtime at one and one-half times the regular rate for hours exceeding 40 in a workweek. When employers fail to pay for off-the-clock work, they aren't just being unfair. They are violating federal law. And the unpaid wages can add up to thousands of dollars over time.
The FLSA's overtime protections are straightforward: if you are a non-exempt employee and you work more than 40 hours in a workweek, your employer must pay you overtime. But the critical question in many cases is not whether overtime was earned — it's whether the employer is counting all the hours you actually worked.
The Department of Labor's regulations at 29 CFR Part 785 define "hours worked" broadly. The regulations state that work includes all time during which an employee is required to be on the employer's premises, on duty, or at a prescribed workplace. This includes any time your employer "suffers or permits" you to work — a phrase with important legal meaning.
Under the FLSA, work need not be requested to be compensable. If your employer knows — or has reason to know — that you are performing work, that time counts as hours worked. This is the "suffered or permitted" standard, and it is one of the most powerful worker protections in wage and hour law.
Here's what this means in practice: if your supervisor sees you working before your shift starts and doesn't tell you to stop, your employer must pay you for that time. If your company's system logs show you accessing work email at 10 PM, your employer can't claim ignorance. If you regularly stay 20 minutes after your shift to finish documentation and your manager knows about it, those 20 minutes are compensable — whether or not you were told to stay.
The burden is on the employer, not the employee. Employers cannot benefit from off-the-clock work and then claim they didn't authorize it. As the Department of Labor has explained, an employer who has the power to prevent work from being done but allows it to continue has "suffered or permitted" that work under the FLSA.
Off-the-clock work takes many forms. Some are obvious. Others have become so routine that employees don't even realize they should be getting paid. Below are the most common categories.
Many employees perform work before their official shift begins. This includes:
If these activities are necessary for you to perform your job or are required by your employer, they are compensable work time under the FLSA. An employer cannot set your shift start at 8:00 AM but require you to be logged in and ready to take calls at 8:00 AM — the time spent getting ready is work.
Staying after your shift to complete tasks is one of the most widespread forms of off-the-clock work. Common examples include:
If you are required to perform these tasks — or if your employer knows you are performing them — you are entitled to be paid. Many employers create staffing levels and caseloads that make it impossible to finish work within a scheduled shift, then refuse to pay for the additional time needed. That is a wage violation.
The FLSA does not require employers to provide meal breaks, but if an employer does provide a break, the employee must be completely relieved of duties for the break to be unpaid. Under 29 CFR § 785.19, a bona fide meal period requires at least 30 minutes during which the employee is free to use the time for their own purposes.
If you eat at your desk while answering phones, respond to emails during lunch, remain on-call during your break, or are interrupted by work tasks, your meal period is not a true break — and it must be paid.
A particularly harmful practice is the automatic meal deduction. Many employers automatically deduct 30 minutes or an hour from each employee's daily hours, regardless of whether the employee actually took a full, uninterrupted break. If you regularly work through lunch but your employer deducts the time anyway, you are losing pay for hours you actually worked. This is one of the most common wage violations in healthcare, customer service, and other industries where workloads make uninterrupted breaks unrealistic.
Checking and responding to work emails, text messages, phone calls, or Slack messages outside of your scheduled hours is compensable work. This includes:
With the rise of smartphones and remote work technology, after-hours communication has become a growing source of unpaid work. Employers who require or expect employees to stay connected outside of work hours must compensate them for that time.
Under DOL regulations at 29 CFR § 785.27 through § 785.32, training time is generally compensable unless all four of the following conditions are met: attendance is outside regular working hours, attendance is voluntary, the training is not directly related to the employee's job, and the employee performs no productive work during the training. If any one of these conditions is not met, the training time must be paid.
In practice, most employer-required training, continuing education, compliance courses, and team meetings are compensable. If your employer requires you to complete online training modules at home, attend meetings before or after your shift, or participate in weekend conferences related to your job, you should be paid for that time.
Not all travel time is compensable under the FLSA, but some types are. Travel between job sites during the workday — such as driving between patient visits, client locations, or satellite offices — is work time that must be paid. If your employer requires you to travel from one assignment to another during your shift, that travel is compensable.
Normal commuting time is generally not compensable. However, if your employer requires you to report to a central location, pick up supplies or equipment, and then travel to your actual work site, the travel from the central location to the work site may be compensable.
Healthcare workers and case managers are among the employees most affected by off-the-clock work violations. The nature of the work — high caseloads, strict documentation requirements, and the reality that patient needs don't follow a schedule — creates conditions where unpaid work becomes routine.
Clinical documentation is a major source of off-the-clock work. Case managers, nurses, care coordinators, and social workers frequently spend 30 minutes to two hours after each shift completing electronic health records, writing case notes, updating care plans, and filing required paperwork. Many employers set productivity standards that make it impossible to complete documentation during the workday, effectively requiring employees to chart on their own time.
If you are completing documentation that your employer requires — and your employer knows or should know you are doing it — that time is compensable regardless of whether you are physically at the office.
Many healthcare organizations require staff to attend shift-change meetings, case conferences, quality reviews, or team huddles that occur outside of scheduled work hours. These meetings are compensable work time.
Field-based case managers and home health workers who travel between patient homes or client sites during their workday must be paid for travel time. Employers who pay only for "face time" with patients — excluding the hours spent driving between visits — are violating the FLSA. This is particularly common among home health agencies and managed care organizations that employ field-based staff.
Healthcare employers frequently use automatic meal deductions despite the reality that clinical staff often cannot take uninterrupted breaks. When a case manager eats lunch while reviewing a patient file, or a nurse is interrupted during a meal to respond to a patient need, the automatic deduction creates a wage violation. Several major healthcare systems have faced class action lawsuits over this practice.
Under the FLSA, the time employees spend putting on ("donning") and taking off ("doffing") required uniforms, protective equipment, or specialized gear can be compensable work time. The Supreme Court addressed this issue in IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez (2005), holding that time spent donning and doffing gear that is "integral and indispensable" to an employee's principal activities is compensable.
This applies to workers who must put on scrubs, lab coats, personal protective equipment (PPE), hard hats, safety glasses, steel-toed boots, harnesses, or other gear required by their employer or by regulation. If your employer requires you to arrive before your shift to put on equipment and stay after your shift to remove it, that time counts as hours worked.
Off-the-clock violations continue to generate significant enforcement actions and settlements across the country. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division regularly recovers millions of dollars in back wages for employees who were not paid for all hours worked. These cases span industries — from healthcare systems paying millions to resolve claims that nurses and case managers were not compensated for pre-shift and post-shift work, to retail and restaurant chains settling claims involving automatic meal deductions and off-the-clock tasks.
Courts have consistently held that employers cannot avoid liability by having policies that prohibit off-the-clock work while simultaneously creating conditions that require it. An employer who sets impossible productivity standards, understaffs shifts, or creates documentation requirements that cannot be met within scheduled hours cannot escape liability simply by pointing to a policy that says "no off-the-clock work."
If you believe you are performing off-the-clock work, keeping a personal record of your time is one of the most important steps you can take. Strong documentation can make the difference between recovering the full amount you are owed and losing your claim. Here are practical steps you can take:
Under the FLSA, employers are required to keep accurate records of all hours worked. When employers fail to maintain proper records, courts may rely on the employee's own good-faith estimate of hours worked — which makes your personal documentation even more valuable.
FLSA claims are subject to a two-year statute of limitations for standard violations and a three-year statute of limitations for willful violations. This means you can recover back pay for up to two or three years of unpaid off-the-clock work, depending on whether your employer's violation was willful. The clock is running — the longer you wait to take action, the more potential back pay you lose.
Many employees hesitate to raise off-the-clock pay issues because they fear retaliation. The FLSA prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who assert their wage and hour rights. This includes termination, demotion, reduction in hours, reassignment to less favorable duties, or any other adverse action taken because you complained about unpaid wages or participated in a wage and hour investigation.
If your employer retaliates against you for raising off-the-clock work concerns, you may have an additional legal claim on top of your unpaid wages claim.
Employees who prevail on FLSA off-the-clock claims can recover:
For employees with consistent off-the-clock work patterns, these amounts can be substantial. Fifteen minutes of unpaid work per day may not seem like much, but across a three-year period with liquidated damages, even modest daily time can translate into a meaningful recovery.
Off-the-clock work is not a perk your employer gets to keep. It is compensable time under federal law, and employers who fail to pay for it are breaking the law. Whether you are booting up a computer before your shift, finishing documentation after hours, working through lunch, or checking emails from home — if your employer knows or should know you are working, you are entitled to be paid.
If you believe you are performing unpaid off-the-clock work, the Siegel Law Group can evaluate your situation and explain your options. There is no charge for the initial consultation, and we handle FLSA cases on a contingency basis — you pay nothing unless we recover wages on your behalf. Contact us today to discuss your case. You can also reach us by text or phone at (512) 947-0097 or by email. We respond to most inquiries within one business day.
This page provides general information about off-the-clock work and the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every situation is different, and outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case. If you need legal advice, please contact a qualified attorney.
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