Employee Handbook  

Section 5 — Job Classification/Compensation

The City operates on a 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week basis. Beginning, ending, meal, and break times may vary. Employees are expected to observe the hours set within their departments; any special arrangements need to be agreed to by the immediate supervisors.

Each department will establish its own policy within the following guidelines:

• Break periods are considered time worked and should not exceed 15 minutes.

• Break periods may not be added to lunch hours or other off-duty time.

• Break periods cannot be accumulated to provide for prolonged, time-off periods.

• Scheduling of break periods for individuals should not interfere with the department’s normal operation.

• Break periods should not occur at the beginning or conclusion of the work day.

• The scheduling and location of  break periods are determined by the employee’s manager or supervisor.

Occasionally, a supervisor or manager may not be able to give work breaks due to the requests for service from the public or to ensure for the efficient operation of the department.

Possible Break Schedules

Employees scheduled to work four to six hours will be entitled to one break. Employees scheduled to work more than six hours will be entitled to a meal period of at least 30 minutes at a time approximately halfway between the beginning and end of the shift and will be entitled to two breaks.

Meal periods are unpaid and cannot be accumulated to provide for prolonged, time-off periods.

Nursing Mothers

To assist the transition of women from maternity leave back to work following the birth of a child, the City will provide reasonable break times for an employee to express milk for her nursing child for 1 year after the child’s birth each time the employee has need to express milk. Human Resources will work with each nursing mother to determine a private area in which they may express milk. In general, there will be two to three breaks per eight hour period. Any additional time used beyond the authorized paid break time will not be compensated by the City for hourly employees.

Meal Break Auto-Deduction Policy

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows employers to automatically deduct thirty (30) minutes from compensable time for meal breaks for hourly employees, provided those employees are permitted a meal break that is free from all job duties and, alternatively, a procedure exists to reverse the automatic deduction.

The City uses automatic meal deductions for subsets of employee, automatically subtracting thirty (30) minutes from an employee's recorded time. An auto-deduction yields several benefits for a subset of positions within the City due to the nature of the role. Employees subjected to this policy are to read through this policy to ensure they understand this process.

Canceling/Reversing Auto-Deduction

Employees who work during mealtime have the ability to cancel the auto lunch in our timekeeping system. The City has created a pay code that can be selected within UKG Ready to cancel the auto-deduction. Please see instructions titled "Auto-Lunch Reversal Process" located on the intranet under My Pay/Payroll Information.

If you have any issues with this process, please notify your supervisor in writing that the deduction should not apply on a particular shift. The City of West Des Moines wants to ensure we pay hourly employees for all time worked.

Resolving Disagreements

If an employee disagrees with the determination and/or proposed adjustment, they may contact Human Resources or enter into the Dispute Resolution process (See Section 3.6).