What are best practices for overtime?
After 40 hours of working, the risk of accidents and mistakes increases. In order to create sustainable jobs, in many cases, the law encourages you to pay workers “time and a half”—or 1.5 times their regular hourly rate—after 40 hours of work per week and after 8 hours per day. For example, someone earning $15 per hour would get $22.50 per overtime hour when working over 40 hours.
Employers of home attendants can learn more about Federal Department of Labor rules about overtime.
Are you planning to pay a “salary”?
Domestic workers are typically hourly workers to ensure that overtime pay can be calculated and their labor is not exploited. If you would like to guarantee a weekly take-home amount for the worker you employ, or have other questions about this, please contact us at [email protected].
What if I can’t afford overtime pay?
For employers of home attendants: If you employ a home attendant for a high number of hours and cannot afford overtime pay, we encourage you to hire multiple workers and track their hours, so that no one worker works more than 40 hours a week. We recognize that some of you will have to shift your employment practices to do this, and while this may be a challenge in the short run, in the long run these changes will benefit everyone.
For employers of nannies/childcare providers: If you employ a nanny/childcare provider for a high number of hours and cannot afford overtime pay, we encourage you to employ multiple workers; possibly a day-time provider and a night-time provider. Another option is to enter into a “nanny-share” arrangement and in this way share the cost of overtime with other families.
Note: If you participate in a nanny-share, the hourly wage should increase because the worker is caring for more children. So compare costs before making this shift.
