DOL investigation of an employer

Описание: I just finished a site visit at one of the companies I represent. And as an overtime lawyer, I represent employees, but occasionally I represent employers too. In this situation, my employer is being investigated by the Department of Labor. This is a pretty normal thing. The DOL has a bunch of field investigators, and they're basically going around and visiting and talking to employees and companies all the time. And today was one of those occasions. It's an initial conference. And what happens at an initial conference is that the company has been contacted by the DOL. They've been notified that they're being investigated or audited for compliance. And so they're already made certain record requests, and then they want to come out and talk to the company about it. So I enjoy this process because then I get to see the concerns that an employer may have during an FLSA investigation. And it's useful because it gives you empathy and it gives you insight on how companies operate. And surprisingly, there's not a lot of intent that goes into play when there's an FLSA violation. The DOL investigates many companies for different things, and there's a large variety of statutes that the DOL is responsible for. And they niche down, they know these regs really well. And so if you are an employer, you may not know about all of these different regulations and requirements. And because you don't know, you're going to break some of those rules, either intentionally or accidentally. And most of my clients, it was an accidental violation. And so my job is to make sure that I get a good read of the employer's compliance as it exists when I come in. And how do I get them up to compliance during the investigation and make them look good with the DOL investigator? And so I kind of know behind the scene, a lot of these employees are really worried every time they get audited or investigated by the DOL. I would imagine they feel the same way if they were getting sued for an FLSA violation. So it's interesting for me, but it also helps me build empathy and gives me perspective from an employer's point of view. And I think it's actually lowers the tension quite a bit because I know what the worst case scenario is and I know how to deal with it because I bring the chaos sometimes as the plaintiff's lawyer. So I'm able to bring the tension down both for the investigator and the employer. Okay, back to work.