The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an opinion letter on May 28, 2026, addressing whether a public hospital’s timekeeping practices violated federal wage-and-hour law. The letter analyzes whether the employer’s treatment of pre-shift activities and waiting time, the application of the de minimis doctrine, and the rounding policy complied with the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The DOL’s Opinion Letter FLSA2026-8 addressed four questions submitted by a hospital non-exempt employee. According to the opinion, the employer hospital uses a rounding system for clock-ins where employees are given flexibility to clock in up to seven minutes early or seven minutes late. The timekeeping system is set to round clock-in times to scheduled shift times: for example, 6:53 a.m. rounds to 7:00 a.m. or 7:07 p.m. rounds to 7:00 p.m. Due to the limited number of timekeeping stations, this practice was apparently intended to mitigate delays caused by bottlenecks at the stations. It is common at the hospital for non-exempt employees, such as respiratory therapists, to regularly engage in pre-shift work activities immediately after clocking in before their scheduled shift begins. The hospital does not compensate employees for this work.
The employee inquired whether:
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