When done right, employee onboarding is one of the most important and impactful first steps in an employee’s new position. While onboarding processes may vary at different organizations, do employers have to pay employees for the time spent during onboarding? Read on to find out.
Employee onboarding involves the integration of a new employee into an organization by providing the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to be successful in the role. The onboarding process typically involves everything from filling out paperwork to meeting coworkers and being introduced to the company culture.
Yes, employees should be paid for onboarding. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) defines employment to include people who “suffer or permit to work,” according to the Department of Labor.
Additionally, a typical workweek includes the time during which an employee is required to be on the employer’s premises, on duty, or at a specific work location--and a “workday” in general is defined as the period of time on a day when an employee performs their “principal activity,” according to the DOL. Therefore, the DOL points out that the workday might last longer than the employee's scheduled shift or hours.
The following criteria outlined by the DOL decide if the time spent at meetings and training programs count as working hours:
If all four of the above criteria are met, then employers do not have to pay the employee. However, onboarding is usually mandatory, happens during business hours, and includes filling out paperwork. Therefore, as SHRM points out, employees must be paid for the time spent during onboarding.
Ideally, onboarding should be a shared responsibility between HR and your management and leadership teams, with neither party bearing sole responsibility.
Managers should be the ones actually working with new hires during the onboarding process while HR’s role should be to serve as quality assurance. This approach ensures onboarding success because HR’s oversight helps keep your entire organization on the same page and dedicated to creating an excellent new hire experience.
There are some parts of the process that will more naturally fall to HR, like legal paperwork such as the I-9 and W-4 forms, but realistically, the hiring manager needs to play the biggest role in actually onboarding the new hire on their first day.
Onboarding can set the tone for a new hire’s experience with the organization, so it’s important to get right. Here are ways that employers and HR professionals can streamline the onboarding process: