WHD provides travel, training time guidance

The U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recently issued two opinion letters addressing when travel time and training time are considered compensable hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Like all opinion letters, the new guidance was based exclusively on the facts of specific cases. Nevertheless, they provide helpful directives on two often-overlooked areas of compensable time.

Voluntary training time

In opinion letter FLSA2020-15, the WHD answered questions from a hospice care business that provides funds to nonexempt employees for continuing education. The employees don't have to use the funds or attend any particular continuing education classes. The training is completely voluntary, and the employees gain no work-related benefit from attending and incur no penalties for not attending.

Under the FLSA regulations, you must pay employees for time spent in training, educational, and similar programs unless all of the following four criteria are met: