Nearly 34% of America's employees are not required by their employers to track their hours worked. This is according to the 2017 "Getting Paid In America" survey conducted by the American Payroll Association for National Payroll Week, September 4-8.

While employers are not required to track hours for many of their employees, that may change soon. Even though a regulation that would have increased the Department of Labor's "white-collar" overtime exemption threshold was invalidated by a Texas federal district court on August 31, 2017, the DOL has signaled that it will revise the regulations. Many of those businesses not tracking employees' hours could be out of compliance if their employees become for eligible for overtime if the threshold is increased.

"It's troubling that so many employers still continue not to track all of their employee hours worked," said Dan Maddux, executive director of the American Payroll Association. "These results show that nearly a third of American Businesses were narrowly saved by the court in Texas from significant compliance concerns." 

Beyond compliance, accurately tracking all hours worked by employees is an important metric for businesses, according to Bob DelPonte, vice president and general manager of Workforce Ready Group, Kronos.

"Employee compensation is only as accurate as the data used to generate payroll each pay cycle. Organizations that fail to capture an accurate look at their employees' complete work hours will struggle to pay employees what they have earned and risk undermining their own employee engagement initiatives."

The annual "Getting Paid In America" survey by the APA asked, "How do you input the hours you work at your place of employment?" Nearly 34 percent of respondents indicated they are not required to document their time spent on the job. Another 14% of respondents stated they are still using antiquated time cards and timesheets to document their hours worked.