Many of our clients seek clarification regarding training pay and when they are required to compensate non-exempt employees for the lectures, meetings, and trainings they attend. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to compensate employees for all hours worked.  Hours worked ordinarily includes all time during which an employee is required to be on the Company’s premises, on duty, or at a prescribed workplace. Any hour that an employee works on behalf of the Company, or that the Company knows or has reason to know that work is being performed by the employee, is compensable time, regardless of where the work is performed (with some limitations).

Many companies give employees opportunities to attend lectures, seminars and training programs as well as require employees to attend company meetings.  Depending on the facts of the situation, lectures, meetings and training programs may or may not be compensable. Time spent at the lecture, seminar, or training session does not have to be compensated if all of the following four conditions are met:

1. Attendance is outside of the employee’s regular working hours
   Employees’ participation in lectures, meetings, and training takes place outside their regular work hours.
2. Attendance is voluntary
   In order for attendance to be voluntary, the employer cannot put any pressure on the employee to attend the training. Training is not voluntary if it is required by the employer, if the employee is led to believe that not attending will adversely affect his or her present working conditions or continued employment, or if disciplinary action will be taken against the employee for not attending.
3. The training is not directly related to the employee’s job
   If the lecture, meeting or training program is not directly related to the employee’s job because it is designed to train him or her for another job and is not intended to make the employee more efficient in his or her present job the time is non-compensable. However, if the training is designed to make the employee do his or her job more effectively or to teach him or her something he or she needs to know to do his or her present job, it is compensable.
4. The employee does not perform any productive work during the training attendance.
   Productive work would be any work which you are able to use for your business purpose, rather than work which is for practice only and of no use to you.

If all of the above factors are not satisfied, then employers must compensate their employees for any time spent attending the lecture, meeting or training program.

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