Time and Wage-Hour Glossary · Workforce

Break attestation: the worker's own answer at clock-out about whether a required meal or rest break was provided, recorded on their device and used to decide whether a California premium is owed (Breaks, Premiums & Attestations).
Buddy punching: one worker clocking in or out for another, countered by identification at the clock (PIN, badge, photo, biometric) and by checking punches against the schedule (Clocks, Kiosks, Geofences & Biometrics).
Cash wage (tipped): the wage an employer pays a tipped employee in cash before counting tips; at least $2.13 an hour under the FLSA, higher or the full minimum in many states (Tipped Employees).
Clopening: a closing shift followed by an opening shift with too short a rest between them; fair workweek laws in Oregon and Seattle require 10 hours or pay time and a half for hours inside the window (Fair Workweek & Scheduling Laws).
Daily overtime: overtime owed for hours over a daily threshold (8 in California, Alaska and, for lower-paid employees, Nevada), in addition to weekly overtime (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
De minimis rule: the federal rule that insubstantial periods of a few seconds or minutes that can't practically be recorded may be disregarded, never fixed or regularly required time; California doesn't apply it to regular off-the-clock minutes (The Workweek & the Time Record).
Discretionary bonus: a bonus whose payment and amount the employer decides at or near the end of the period with no prior promise, excludable from the regular rate under FLSA section 7(e)(3) (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Dual jobs: employment in a tipped and a non-tipped occupation by the same employee; no tip credit may be taken for hours in the non-tipped job (Tipped Employees).
Fair workweek law: a state or city law requiring advance schedules, good-faith hour estimates, rest between shifts and predictability pay for late changes, for covered retail, food service and hospitality employers (Fair Workweek & Scheduling Laws).
Final pay: the wages due when employment ends, payable on a deadline set by state law by separation type and notice, from immediately in California to the end of the pay period in Washington (Pay Frequency, Pay Statements & Final Pay).
Fluctuating workweek: paying a nonexempt employee a fixed salary for all hours in weeks that vary, plus half the week's regular rate for each overtime hour, under 29 CFR 778.114 (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Geofence: a boundary around a work location used to flag or block mobile punches made outside it (Clocks, Kiosks, Geofences & Biometrics).
Good-faith estimate: a written estimate given at hire under fair workweek laws of the hours a worker can expect (median monthly hours in Oregon) and whether on-call shifts are expected (Fair Workweek & Scheduling Laws).
Highly compensated employee (HCE, FLSA): an employee with total annual compensation of at least $107,432, including $684 a week in salary, exempt from overtime if they regularly perform one exempt duty (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Hours worked: the time an employer must pay for under wage-hour law, including work suffered or permitted, waiting when engaged to wait, short rest breaks and some travel (The Workweek & the Time Record).
Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA): the Illinois law requiring written notice, a written release and a public retention policy before collecting biometric identifiers, with $1,000 or $5,000 in liquidated damages per violation (Clocks, Kiosks, Geofences & Biometrics).
Major fraction: in California rest period rules, any part of a four-hour work period over two hours, which earns another ten-minute rest period (Breaks, Premiums & Attestations).
Manual worker (New York): a worker in New York whose physical labor makes them subject to weekly pay within seven days of the week's end under Labor Law 191 (Pay Frequency, Pay Statements & Final Pay).
Meal and rest premium (California): one additional hour of pay at the regular rate of compensation for each workday a compliant meal, rest or recovery period isn't provided, paid as wages under Labor Code 226.7 (Breaks, Premiums & Attestations).
Minimum wage adjustment: the make-up earning paid when a workweek's creditable wages fall short of the applicable minimum for its hours (Minimum Wage as Data).
Predictability pay: premium pay a fair workweek law requires for employer changes to a posted schedule inside the notice period, excluded from the FLSA regular rate (Fair Workweek & Scheduling Laws).
PUMP Act: the 2022 law extending FLSA break time and private space for nursing employees to express milk for up to one year after a child's birth (Breaks, Premiums & Attestations).
Raw punch: a clock event exactly as captured, kept beside any rounded or edited time so pay can be recomputed (The Workweek & the Time Record).
Regular rate: all compensation for a workweek except the FLSA section 7(e) exclusions, divided by all hours worked; overtime is owed at one and a half times it (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Reporting time pay: California's pay of half the scheduled day, between 2 and 4 hours, for an employee who reports for a shift and is given less than half of it (Fair Workweek & Scheduling Laws).
Retro overtime: extra overtime premium owed for past workweeks when a bonus or commission earned in them is later apportioned back, under 29 CFR 778.209 (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Rounding (time clock): recording punches to the nearest 5, 6 or 15 minutes, allowed federally only if it doesn't underpay over time and barred for meal punches in California (The Workweek & the Time Record).
Salary level (exempt): the minimum salary for the FLSA white-collar exemptions, $684 a week in the regulations as of November 2026, and higher under state laws such as California's two times the state minimum wage (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Seventh-day overtime: California's time and a half for the first 8 hours and double time beyond 8 on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Tip credit: the part of the minimum wage an employer may satisfy with an employee's tips, up to $5.12 an hour under the FLSA and limited to tips actually received, with notice; banned in several states (Tipped Employees).
Tip pool: a mandatory sharing of tips among employees; with a tip credit only among customarily tipped employees (traditional), without one possibly including others paid the full minimum (nontraditional), never managers or the employer (Tipped Employees).
Tipped employee: an employee in an occupation in which they customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in tips under the FLSA (Tipped Employees).
Voluntary standby list: under Oregon's predictive scheduling law, workers who agree in writing to be offered extra hours, which earn no change premium when accepted (Fair Workweek & Scheduling Laws).
Wage statement: the itemized statement given with each payment of wages, with contents set by state law such as California Labor Code 226(a) and New York Labor Law 195(3) (Pay Frequency, Pay Statements & Final Pay).
Waiting time penalty: California's penalty for willfully late final pay, the employee's daily wages for each day late up to 30 days, under Labor Code 203 (Pay Frequency, Pay Statements & Final Pay).
Weighted average regular rate: the regular rate of an employee who works at two or more rates in a workweek, total earnings divided by total hours (Overtime & the Regular Rate).
Workweek: the fixed, regularly recurring 168-hour period an employer sets for each employee, the unit for FLSA overtime and minimum wage (The Workweek & the Time Record).