The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued four new opinion letters on May 28, 2026, signed by Wage and Hour Administrator Andrew B. Rogers. These letters offer useful, if non-binding, insight into how the DOL currently interprets several common wage-and-hour issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). A summary of each is below, along with practical takeaways for your organization.
An exempt employee does not automatically lose exempt status by also performing additional nonexempt work at an hourly rate. The DOL’s example involved a nursing professional development specialist who regularly picked up extra hourly shifts. As long as the employee’s primary duty remains exempt work, and the salary basis and salary level tests continue to be met, the exemption holds.
The DOL addressed whether a quarterly bonus, calculated by comparing an employee’s total straight-time and overtime earnings against the earnings of all eligible employees, qualifies as a valid “percentage of total earnings” bonus under 29 C.F.R. § 778.210. If structured correctly, this bonus type can satisfy the FLSA’s overtime pay requirement automatically, without a separate recalculation of overtime owed on the bonus.
Where an employer provides a bona fide, uninterrupted 30-minute meal period during which employees are fully relieved of duty, time an employee voluntarily spends traveling off-site for that meal — including walking to a vehicle or passing through security — is not compensable. The DOL clarified that the relevant question is whether the employee is relieved of duty, not whether the full 30 minutes can realistically be used for an off-site meal. Notably, an employer is not even required to permit employees to leave the premises during meal periods.
This letter addressed hospital pre-shift practices and covered three distinct issues:
- Pre-shift work that is integral and indispensable to an employee’s principal duties (e.g., reviewing assignments, receiving handoff reports) is compensable, and the de minimis exemption is unlikely to apply if the work occurs regularly.
- Time spent simply clocking in or out, or waiting in line to do so, is not compensable.
- A rounding policy that rounds clock-ins to the scheduled shift start time is permissible, provided the rounding window is limited to roughly seven minutes.
What This Means for Your Organization
While DOL opinion letters are fact-specific and do not create new legal requirements, they signal how the agency is likely to interpret the FLSA going forward, and can help defend against claims that a violation was “willful.” In light of these letters, we recommend reviewing:
- Job classifications for employees performing multiple roles or duties
- Bonus plan structures for compliance with regular-rate and overtime rules
- Meal-break policies, to confirm employees are genuinely relieved of duty
- Timekeeping and rounding practices, particularly around pre-shift activity
Questions about how these opinion letters may affect your policies?
Reach out to your Synergy HR representative — we’re happy to help you review and update your practices.
