Under new regulations adopted by the Illinois Department of Labor effective in August 2014, Illinois employers are required to maintain a record of each employee’s hours worked by day for all employees, including those that are salary exempt. (Salary exempt employees include certain executive, professional, and administrative employees. If you need help determining if your employees qualify for this classification, please call us.) The Fair Labor Standards Act (a federal law) does not require employers to track hours for salaried exempt employees.
The Illinois regulation requires employers to keep, in their files, a record of hours worked for the most recent three years. In the event that an employer does not maintain these records, the Illinois Department of Labor will continue to side with the employees claiming wages owed and the employee’s statement of hours worked be used to determine underpaid hours.
We recommend that Illinois employers maintain records of hours worked for both hourly and exempt employees.
