Top 10 Ways to Encourage a Wage and Hour Audit at Your Daycare

Yes, we're being sarcastic here in our "suggestions", but daycare facilities are notorious for not complying with wage and hour laws--hence the reason more and more facilities are being scrutinized by the wage and hour folks. Make sure your program is not one of them by avoiding these common pitfalls.

10. Always "round down" your employees' hours. Since Wage and Hour laws require you to pay in 15 minute increments, any work for 14 minutes or under is unpaid.

9. Require your teachers to attend a meeting or training and don't pay them for that time.

8. Encourage your teachers to put in unpaid time before or after their regular shifts; you know, "help the team".

7. Ask one of your teachers to go to the store after work to pick up something for the program-and, of course, don't pay them for their time or mileage (and, if you're really bold, don't pay them for what they purchased).

6. Ask one of your teachers to work overtime to cover another teacher's absence, then, instead of paying her overtime, just give her comp time instead.

5. Don't worry about having your employees sign in or out on a daily basis-after all, you know when they are scheduled to work. (By the way, child care licensing agencies love this one as well!)

4. Designate all of your staff members as "exempt" employees so that you can pay them a salary and not have to worry about overtime, etc.

3. Instead of allowing preparation/planning time for your teachers, have them do their planning and material preparation at home.

2. Schedule your teacher's lunch break during the children's nap time so that she can eat her lunch in the classroom while monitoring sleeping children.

1. Hire as few teachers as possible and schedule them to work from open to close.

Hopefully these "suggestions" sound awful to you, but unfortunately they do happen in our industry. Strive to be an "employer of choice" by treating your employees in a fair manner (oh yeah, and in compliance with the law).

Mindy