If, as Benjamin Franklin famously said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, then it is no wonder employers are conducting wage-and-hour audits in record numbers. Wage-and-hour claims continue to outpace all other types of workplace litigation, and show no signs of abatement. In fact, according to the Federal Judicial Center, wage-and-hour claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) have increased more than 500 percent since 1990. Employers also are finding themselves increasingly embroiled in government enforcement activity—the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division, for example, recovered nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in back wages in fiscal year 2013 on behalf of more than 260,000 workers. And, as if all of that were not challenging enough, legislators and regulators are busy crafting new laws and regulations, amending old ones, and focusing on new compliance initiatives.
Employers have responded accordingly. Rather than adopt a passive approach, many have elected to audit wage-and-hour practices proactively to measure compliance with existing laws and take affirmative steps, where appropriate, to better position their organizations for the inevitable. Far better to learn of potential compliance issues by way of an audit rather than a lawsuit, right?
