LinkedIn’s recent class action settlement cost $6 million in back wages and fines to the U.S. Department of Labor and added it to the over 30,000 cases that the Wage and Hours Division pursues each year.  Annually,  over a quarter million workers are impacted in cases that cost employers hundreds of millions of dollars.  LinkedIn has been commended on their response during this investigation and settlement, and for their commitment to make their workers whole.  Clearly, transparency and accountability are big parts of their culture, and I’d like to compliment LinkedIn for their response to this issue.LinkedIn is the last organization that I would expect not to “have the right tools in place for some employees and their managers to track their hours properly.”  They are a modern, cloud-driven platform and service that helps tech savvy members of the digital generation connect with one another.  Here are some pointers that every organization, large or small, ultra-modern or old-school, can use to help avoid running into trouble in today’s new, more flexible workplace.

• Agile employees don’t excuse organizations from proper tracking requirements any more than having multiple regional offices do.  Leverage cutting-edge mobile solutions and put tools in everyone’s hands.

• Solutions born and bred in the cloud are able to quickly adapt to today’s changing landscape.  Cloud applications are always up-to-date, and require little to no IT overhead to roll out additional features.
• Further protect the bottom line by utilizing biometric verification technology to eliminate buddy punching.  Add GPS-based to ensure employees are who they claim to be and are where they should be.
• Managers and administrators should follow regular cycle of approvals and sign offs, available wherever and whenever they are on mobile technology.
• Analytic tools can help alert managers proactively to violations of policy, and help identify a pattern of problems at any operational level.

FLSA Investigations are costly and disruptive as they average more than 90 days to resolve.  Today, leaders are deploying technological solutions that ensure they are properly equipping all employees with the tools they need to track their time.  The smart leaders are leveraging cloud-based, mobile-friendly solutions that will evolve to meet new challenges as the workplace continues to evolve.