Overtime pitfalls: The lurking traps

A rash of wage-and-hour lawsuits is drawing attention to the often-overlooked complexities of overtime pay laws. Think you don't owe overtime? Check our gallery of potential tripwires.

Illustrations by Terry Allen for Fortune Small Business.

Telecommuting
Telecommuting
When an employee is paid hourly, any 7.5 minutes of work must be rounded up to 15 minutes and paid. So if an executive assistant is tapping away on a company-supplied BlackBerry or sending work-related e-mails from home, that is considered on the clock and should be compensated. Electronic discovery is commonplace in overtime lawsuits, so the back-and-forth of e-mails or phone discussions can establish a record of nonexempt employees working away from the office.
Last updated January 22 2008: 8:59 AM ET

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.