Posted on 23-Mar-09 by The Timekeeper

Late last week, the White House announced the appointment of M. Patricia Smith as the Solicitor of Labor at the U.S. Department of Labor. This position, which requires Senate confirmation, is essentially the head attorney at the DOL and is the third-highest ranking position in the department.

Readers with long memories may recall Ms. Smith was the New York State Commissioner of Labor who instituted a partnership program between her department and local community and advocacy groups and unions to identify companies and industries that systematically underpaid their workers, so the state could pursue action against them.

Basically, she asked grassroots organizations in the community to form something like a “Community Watch” program, only instead of watching out for — and reporting — suspected criminal activity, they would actively watch for and report suspected wage and hour violations.

Pair this with the bigger budget for the Wage and Hour Division announced by Hilda Solis, the new Secretary of Labor, and it becomes even more imperative for small businesses — especially businesses in sectors where wage and hour violations are perceived as common, such as restaurants, grocery stores and car washes — to make sure they’re on the straight and narrow path.

The days when a business might be able to fly under the radar, or count on overworked investigators not following up on complaints, may well be coming to an end. It’s getting to the point where having a reliable way of tracking employee hours worked — and paying employees accurately and fairly for those hours — may not just be the right thing to do, it may be a matter of business survival.

If you don’t have a good time and attendance recording system in place, now would be an excellent time to get one. It’s not just a matter of recording employee time to cover your butt in the event of a wage and hour audit… turns out, you can actually save money on payroll preparation with a good automated time and attendance system, too. Most businesses that put a system in place report it pays for itself in a matter of months through reduced time spent on payroll preparation and fewer errors on employee paychecks.

Protect your business from fines and penalties from poor time and attendance recordkeeping, and save money on payroll preparation besides? Sounds like a win-win to me. And in today’s economy, who doesn’t like that?

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