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For years, California employers have commonly used "rounding policies" — the adjusting of an employee's time punches either up or down to the nearest time increment. On their face, such policies seem practical for employers, easily allowing them to calculate compensation in whole numbers. The California Courts of Appeal have long upheld such neutral policies. That is, until 2022, when the Sixth District questioned whether rounding policies remain permissible when exact time data is already recorded.
In Camp v. Home Depot USA, Inc. (2022) 84 Cal. App. 5th 638, an employee directly challenged Home Depot's rounding policies where they already maintained a timekeeping system that tracked an employee's work time down to the exact punch.
The Camp court determined that even though Home Depot's rounding policy was facially neutral, employees like the plaintiff ended up losing hours of compensable time. The court further questioned whether earlier decisions permitting neutral rounding policies remain valid authority. While remanding the case to the trial court, the Camp court urged the California Supreme Court to examine the continued viability of neutral time-rounding policies. In 2023, the California Supreme Court granted review, and the case is now set for oral argument following a full briefing.
The California Supreme Court is expected to determine whether California employers can continue to rely on rounding policies to track time worked. The decision could impact thousands of employers who currently rely on rounding policies, including possible retroactive application. We will monitor the case and provide an update once a decision is issued by the Supreme Court.
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