Human Resource Management
Sept 26, 2015

The law splits most employees into two groups - Exempt or Nonexempt. If you are a "Nonexempt" employee and work over 40 hours in a week, you are normally entitled to overtime pay.
Overtime work is hypothetically, paid at time and a half of your regular rate of pay. Anything over 40 hours should get paid time and a half.
The Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") is the federal law governing the compensation of minimum wage and overtime payments. As a rule, the FLSA requires an employer to pay an employee overtime payment for all "hours worked" in excess of 40 hours in a workweek, unless that employee is "Exempt" from the law.
Employers will often tell employees that they can get "comp time" if they put in an extensive week. Most people think that just because they are compensated a salary, they are exempt and not entitled to overtime. This is not true at all. Being paid a salary is NOT the same as being exempt.
For overtime purposes, employees are either "exempt" or "nonexempt." Nonexempt employees are entitled to overtime pay. Exempt employees are not.
Generally, whether you are "exempt" or "nonexempt" depends on two comprehensive principles. To be "exempt," both of the next criteria must be met:
1. The employee must be paid a salary (not hourly),
AND
2. The employee must perform the duties of an exempt employee.
An employee who is paid on an hourly basis is "nonexempt" no matter what kind of work that person does (except for doctors, lawyers, and teachers).
An employee who is paid a salary is still "nonexempt" unless s/he also performs exempt job duties.
These duties fall into three categories: Executive, Administrative and Professional.

If I was working for this company and was told to come in an extra 15 min. to set up prior to my start time, and/or asked to stay and finish up without pay I would be furious. Time is money and its not fair ethically or legal to ask someone to work extra time for no pay. I have had a job where the company put in my 40 hour work week to include 10 min in the morning for setup and 5 min in the afternoon to shut down. This way I worked my full hours and got paid for each hour worked. I would never allow a company to take advantage of me this way. I also know someone who worked as a salaried manager and put in at least 50 hours a week but only got a 40 hour work week salary. Those 10 extra hours worked were technically free time given. This is an unfair practice in many ways.
If I were a manager I would make sure that each hour worked is paid for. Any extra time required should be included in the time schedule. Period.