How to Manage State-Required Meal Breaks
28 September 2022
What if your state requires a meal break but your employees don't want one?
21 states require employers to provide meal breaks after some number of hours worked.
Some companies respond to these regulations by auto-deducting 30 min each day…
Bad idea, unless it is coupled with a system for VERIFYING that the employee actually stopped work for that 30 min.
Other companies respond by forcing employees to clock out by various means…
While technically compliant, it is a challenging policy to enforce in the trades. Simply put, many technically focused employees do not like to stop. They just want to get the job done, especially if they are being paid piece-rate or commission. What most often happens is the employee decides to clock out, but continue working anyway. This is bad for the employee and VERY dangerous for the employer, legally.
So what CAN/SHOULD companies do?
Provide the opportunity and encourage the taking of meal breaks. Reinforce this via regular documented reminders during team meetings, as well as a verification statement tied to time sheet validation each pay period. The Big Picture Consulting can provide a solid meeting accountability form to use for documenting meeting topics you want to be able to hold people accountable to, as well as verbiage to implement on any time verification process. Free of charge, just reach out to us.
Finally, if you are in California… DO NOT auto-pay "missed meal" penalties. This is only encouraging employees to NOT take lunch breaks because they get paid an hour and a half for working that half hour… Completely goes against the purpose of the law in the first place!
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