Questions Concerning Compensation Under Flexible Work Schedules

The Chief Accountant of the Federal Communications Commission asked whether and in what manner an employee may be compensated in circumstances where, as the result of exigencies of the service, she is precluded from using scheduled credit hours under the Federal Employees' Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act. An employee applied for approval to use 5 credit hours. The application was approved, and then the scheduled use of her credit hours was canceled as a result of exigencies of Government business. The employee worked the 5 hours she was scheduled to take off and these hours were in excess of 40 hours which she had already worked that week. The Act restricts credit hour accumulation to a maximum of 10 hours per pay period. Since the day in which the employee worked her credit hours was the last day of the pay period, she could not carry over 15 credit hours into the next pay period. An employee who is covered by a flexible schedule which permits him or her to vary the length of the workday may be ordered by management to work hours that are in excess of the number of hours which the employee planned to work on a specific day. If the hours ordered to be worked are in excess of 8 in a day or 40 in a week at the time they are performed, those hours are compensable as overtime hours. The Agency's ability to grant the employee compensatory time off in lieu of payment of overtime compensation is limited both by statute and regulation. It would be permissable only upon the employee's request. An employee on a flexible schedule may earn up to, but no more than, 10 hours of compensatory time off in lieu of payment for regularly or irregularly scheduled overtime. If the employee does not request compensatory time off, or it cannot be granted because of the amount of the compensatory time which the employee has accrued, he is entitled to receive overtime compensation. Overtime compensation or compensatory time off must be provided for such hours of work.