Off The Clock Work

[Buadhach]

My company make me do the daily bank deposits after I clock out for the day. I live in Arizona. Can they make me do this?

[Rosswald]

Hi Mark,

The answer has two parts:

Part 1-  YES, they can "make" you do bank deposits as the employer can also mandate extra work, different work schedules or even overtime as the employer sees fit.

Part 2-  The employer MUST pay you for work time.  This includes time you spend driving to the bank to make bank deposits for the business.    It sounds like you are not being paid and this is a good amount of exposure on a few fronts for you  AND your employer. Easy fix:  for example say you typically leave work at 4pm.   Leave at 3:45 instead and get finished at the bank at 4pm.  this will cover you while running to the bank driving your car as work time.  If you leave work at 4:00 then go to the bank for 15 minutes, this is 15 minutes you were not paid for.  It adds up over the year for non-exempt hourly paid employees.  It is also a wage and hour violation in most cases.

Worst Case Scenario:

Could you imagine the amount of legal issues, fingerpointing and lawsuits that would arise if you got into an auto accident and hurt someone or yourself while you were in process of driving to the bank?   Your employer would say you were not working, the labor laws would clearly say you were working...     Maybe the employer would say they never told you to go to the bank and you did it without their knowledge or permission;  then you would say they did tell you to go to the bank and they knew you went to the bank each day.     The employer's workers compensation policy would not apply because you were "not working" according to them and they would deny a claim to pay your lost wages and medical bills;  but of course you pay for an attorney($ 5,000 ?) and your attorney would say you were working and not only were you entitled to the Company Workers comp to cover the injuries and lost time, but what about other damage to other drivers, property, etc.  Your pain and suffering too?    Would it be your  auto insurance responsibility or that of your employer ?    If you killed someone because you were on the cell phone ,  would that person's family try to sue you -- or also the employer because there was no policy on using cell phones while driving...

What you describe is work time and should be paid time.   Also, if that "driving time"  ends up adding to your work hours to the point where you are entitled to overtime that becomes an overtime violation too.    Once your employer is on the radar, they might be subject to a two year audit of other employees and whether they were correctly paid hours worked and overtime.

So you see,  this is another simple example of a REAL situation that can go bad with so many implications to you and the company and cost MUCH MORE than if they just paid you for the 15 minutes to go to the bank.  They really aren't saving anything by trying to cut corners- just adding risk to their business.

Explain this to your employer and if you need any help you know where to find me.

If you get fired for bringing this up- that is another issue--

If you have a follow up question, just reply

Brian