When the question first arises, do you have to pay your employees for the time it takes to take their temperature, my HR brain kicks in and screams, “you can’t take their temperature at all! It’s an illegal medical exam!”
This would normally be the answer, but these times are not normal. Generally speaking, an employer cannot perform a medical exam on an employee under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But, the pandemic status of Covid-19 means that the rules have changed. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) waived those rules for the pandemic and you can take an employee’s temperature and ask your employees about their health status.
That leaves open a key question about whether you should pay employees for the time it takes to check their temperatures, which at some organizations involves standing in line and waiting for co-workers to get checked.
To keep reading, click here: Why You Should Pay Employees for Temperature Checks
It is ridiculous that we have employers who try to find every loophole to not pay employees while making mandated requirements to be able to work. One thing not pointed is that for all employees to do things like this, it also has to be incorporated into labor laws and sanitation issues by the Health Department.
If employees are having to line up and wait a substantial amount of time for temperature checks, the employer is probably violating the social distancing recommendations too. Current technology allows an employee’s temperature to be taken in approximately the same amount of time it takes them to hit the time clock.