Do I Have to Pay My Employees to Voluntarily Attend a Conference?

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

A business owner from Massachusetts called me the other day seeking clarification on his legal responsibility to pay his non-exempt employees’ wages when they attended an out-of-town green industry conference. Dedicated to professional development, employee training, and industry awareness, the business owner offered an all-expenses paid trip to a landscaping conference for several of his employees.

What a great guy!

True to his beneficent character, the owner paid the employees’ plane fares, hotel expenses, conference registration fees, meals, and local costs for a four-day event. By all accounts, the event was an unrivaled success with the employees enjoying the geographical getaway, learning a tremendous amount of useful information from the workshops and seminar sessions they attended, and establishing their industry-wide networking partnerships. Simply a great opportunity for them!

Upon returning to the work setting the next week, the owner was more than mildly surprised when each of the attendees submitted their timesheets designating their time at the conference as “work time,” expecting their normal rate of pay even though no actual work had been performed.

During my conversation with him, the owner cited a previously-published Company newsletter stating the trip was “optional.” That statement was conveniently forgotten by each of the attendees, who ostensibly believed this travel event was a required performance expectation.

I know. I know. Don’t even say it.

While easily attributed to “miscommunication,” there is actually a legal standard that takes precedence. Per the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), there are four criteria that must be met for a non-exempt employee to not receive his/her regular wage when attending an event (e.g., lectures, conferences, training events, meetings, client visits). If even one of the following four criteria is not fulfilled, the employee must be paid for all hours “worked.”

Attendance must be outside of normal work hours.
Attendance must be voluntary.
The event must not be directly related to the non-exempt employee’s job and thus does not benefit the employer by helping the employee to do a better job.
The employee must not perform any productive work during his/her attendance at the event.

In specific, first, the conference obviously occurred within normal work hours. Second, the newsletter did represent evidence the event was stipulated as being voluntary. Third, the conference content was certainly job-related. Fourth, if any of the non-exempt attendees talked with other employees, customers, vendors, etc. back in Massachusetts, that action would constitute concurrent work performance. Clearly, the owner focused his mindset exclusively on the second criterion, unaware of the remaining three.

In sum, I “suggested” the owner pay those employees for their compensable time worked that occurred at a “voluntary” conference, to maintain legal compliance with the FLSA.

Needless to say, there are myriad other FLSA and state laws and nuances (e.g., travel time, meal periods, rest breaks, overtime, waiting time) that accompany this aspect of employment law, which for the time being are beyond the scope of this posting.

While ostensibly viewed as a misfortunate calculation, this event was actually an indelible victory for the company culture, each employee’s development, and the business owner’s leadership capital.

For those reasons, and others to be sure, the employees know for certain, their owner is a Great Guy!

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