It doesn’t pay to short employees for working overtime. Just ask LinkedIn.
The U.S. Labor Department announced on Monday that the professional networking site agreed to pay nearly $6 million in back wages and damages to 359 current and former employees. An investigation by the agency revealed that LinkedIn (LNKD) had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that hourly employees be paid 1.5 times their regular hourly rates for any hours worked over 40 a week. In LinkedIn’s case, the company failed to properly track and pay select employees at company offices in California, Illinois, Nebraska and New York.
“This company has shown a great deal of integrity by fully cooperating with investigators and stepping up to the plate without hesitation to help make workers whole,” David Weil, administrator of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, said in a statement.
A LinkedIn spokesman said in a statement that “talent is LinkedIn’s number one priority, so of course, we were eager to work closely with the Dept. Of Labor to quickly and equitably rectify this situation.” The spokesperson stressed that affected employees consisted of a “small subset” of the company’s sales force and added that the company “has made every effort possible to ensure each impacted employee has been made whole.”
As part of the agreement, LinkedIn agreed to offer compliance training, educate employees and managers about a policy that prohibits working “off-the-clock” work and remind managers that employers must be compensated for overtime. LinkedIn also agreed not to retaliate against employees who may raise “concerns about workplace issues” in the future.