Do I Get Paid for Training and Orientation? — In Plain Words

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Why hours worked matter

Fact Sheet #22 says it provides general information about what counts as compensable time under the FLSA.

The sheet says the Act requires that employees must receive at least the minimum wage. It also says employees may not be employed for more than 40 hours in a week without receiving at least one and one-half times their regular rates of pay for the overtime hours.

The sheet says the amount employees should receive cannot be determined without knowing the number of hours worked. That is why it matters whether training time counts as hours worked.

The rule for lectures, meetings, and training programs

This is the sheet's full section, headed “Lectures, Meetings and Training Programs,” in its own words:

“Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time only if four criteria are met, namely: it is outside normal hours, it is voluntary, not job related, and no other work is concurrently performed.”

In plain words, the four criteria are:

1. Outside normal hours. The activity is outside normal hours.
2. Voluntary. Attendance is voluntary.
3. Not job related. The activity is not job related.
4. No other work at the same time. No other work is concurrently performed — that is, no other work is done at the same time.

All four must be met. The sheet uses the words “only if.” That means the time need not be counted only in that one case, when all four are met together.

The sheet does not give more detail than this about these four criteria. It does not define “voluntary” further. It does not define “job related” further. This page does not add definitions the sheet does not give.

Work you are allowed to do still counts

Fact Sheet #22 also gives a wider rule. By law, the word “employ” includes “to suffer or permit to work.”

The sheet says: work not requested but suffered or permitted to be performed is work time that must be paid for by the employer.

The sheet gives this example of its own: an employee may voluntarily continue to work at the end of the shift to finish an assigned task or to correct errors. The sheet says the reason is immaterial. The hours are work time and are compensable.

Travel for training

Fact Sheet #22 has a separate section on travel time. It says the principles that apply in deciding whether time spent in travel is compensable time depend on the kind of travel involved. The points below are only the points the sheet itself makes.

Home to work travel

The sheet says an employee who travels from home before the regular workday and returns home at the end of the workday is engaged in ordinary home to work travel, which is not work time.

Travel on a special one-day assignment in another city

The sheet describes an employee who regularly works at a fixed location in one city and is given a special one day assignment in another city and returns home the same day.

The sheet says the time spent traveling to and returning from the other city is work time, except that the employer may deduct, or not count, the time the employee would normally spend commuting to the regular work site.

Travel that is all in a day's work

The sheet says time spent by an employee in travel as part of their principal activity, such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, is work time and must be counted as hours worked.

Travel away from home

The sheet says travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is travel away from home.

The sheet says travel away from home is clearly work time when it cuts across the employee's workday. It says the time is not only hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours, but also during corresponding hours on nonworking days.

The sheet also states an enforcement policy: the Division will not consider as work time that time spent in travel away from home outside of regular working hours as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus, or automobile.

What the sheet itself cautions

Fact Sheet #22 says it provides general information. At the end, it says: “This publication is for general information and is not to be considered in the same light as official statements of position contained in the regulations.”

It also says the contents of the document do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way, and that the document is intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies.

This page covers the federal rule in Fact Sheet #22 only. It does not cover any state rule.

Where to get more information

Fact Sheet #22 gives this contact information for the Wage and Hour Division: visit the Wage and Hour Division website at dol.gov/agencies/whd, and/or call the toll-free information and helpline, available 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in your time zone, at 1-866-487-9243.

This page cannot say what the rule means for your own job. For a question about your own job, use the Wage and Hour Division contact above.

This page is general information only. It is not legal advice.