In a recent Law360 article examining wage-and-hour considerations for employee volunteer programs, Thompson Coburn partner Matthew Brown discussed the legal risks employers may face when employees volunteer in roles that closely mirror their regular job responsibilities.
Matt noted that employers can create potential wage-and-hour exposure if volunteer activities are indistinguishable from an employee’s normal duties.
“If you’re just volunteering, and you’re doing what your regular job duties are, then in theory it’s similar to just working off the clock,” Matt said. “It creates a slippery slope for employers to try to back-end around having to pay someone for work that they should be paid for, that’s within their job duties.”
Matt emphasized that employers need to be careful with their language around volunteer opportunities.
“You want to have an avenue to encourage community service, but you don’t want to have a situation where people don’t feel like it’s voluntary,” he said. “Participation in a volunteer program must not impact anything in the workplace, such as performance reviews, promotions or job assignments.”
“When those things start to come into play, it converts it from being truly voluntary to being forced, which is one of the key conditions for analyzing whether it’s compensable,” he said.
Read the full article here.
