Many Colorado employers provide employee benefits, pay differentials, job assignments and other important benefits on the basis of whether an employee works full time or part time. This can lead to a lot of questions about what is full time under Colorado employment law. These questions typically do not exist when employees work a forty hour workweek but usually arise when employees work thirty-two hours or some other slightly lower number.
For example, you might wonder is 32 hours considered full time in Colorado. The answer depends upon to what issue the full time status relates.
Today’s post will explore some of the common issues in determining full time status under Colorado employment law.
Basic rule for full time status in Colorado
Colorado labor and employment law does not contain an expansive definition of full time or part time status for employees. In general an employee is full time or part time based upon an employer’s own definition. Full time versus part time is often a dividing line for benefits or certain positions but that line is typically not drawn out of a federal or Colorado employment law.
However, several employment law statutes set minimum or maximum limits for how much an employee may or must work to obtain a specific status under the law. Examples include:
- Employees must work 1000 hours within a calendar year to obtain FMLA eligibility which might informally be considered a full time employee;
- Minors generally have limited maximum hours of work within a workweek and cannot be required to miss school hours for work;
- Employees working in certain transportation jobs may be limited by how many travel hours they may complete in a day or week;
We will talk about some common statutory minimum hours for full time status under federal and Colorado employment law in greater detail although it is important to note that the term “full time” is not common statutory or regulatory language in federal and Colorado law.
When a labor law or employment law does not set a minimum or maximum hourly requirement it is generally up to the employer or an agreement between employees and employer to determine when full time status kicks in for particular benefits, job assignments, compensation and so forth. Many Colorado employers consider full time a forty hour workweek schedule but some draw the line at a smaller number. Some employers set the line at thirty-five or thirty-two hours, particularly in industries like restaurants and retail where employees might work flexible schedules or less than a five day workweek.
The best way to assess whether you are a full time employee in Colorado at thirty-two hours is to focus on the specific subject in which the full time status applies. Review your employer’s documentation and legal resources to determine the answer as it applies to that subject. You might be full time for some subjects and not for others.
Applying a single rule to every workplace issue might result in misinforming yourself. Operating on misinformed positions could put your job at risk. As always, if legal issues are involved in your question you should consult employment lawyers in Colorado as soon as possible.
Overtime pay in Colorado
Overtime pay is not exactly a full time versus part time issue but it definitely deals with the work hours for an employee. Federal and Colorado overtime laws calculate overtime pay for all hours in the workweek exceeding forty hours of work for all nonexempt employees. For this purpose an employee can be considered a full time employee at forty hours under the statute. An employee working overtime hours is more than full time. An employer could begin paying overtime pay at thirty-two hours if it wishes but that is an extremely uncommon practice.
Employee benefits and full time status
Most employees care about full time status because employers make benefit plans available to full time employees but may not extend them to part time employees. When we think about employee benefits from an employment law perspective we can think of them in two categories. The differences in categories is important to how and when an employer may make benefits available to employees based on work hours.
Regulated benefit plans under federal and Colorado employment law
First are employee benefit plans regulated by law. For private employers this typically falls under ERISA, the federal law regulating many types of employee benefit plans including:
- 401k plans
- Defined benefit pension plans
- 403b plans
- Health care plans (e.g. health insurance)
- Cafeteria plans (e.g. reimbursement benefits)
- Certain long and short term disability benefits
- Some severance benefits
Employees of federal and Colorado government agencies often offer similar benefits operated under a plan regulated by state or federal laws as applicable. Although the complex regulatory apparatus behind ERISA does not apply to these plans they still generally follow similar regulatory mechanisms.
Benefits regulated by ERISA or other laws must operate as a plan with established rules. The applicable laws often set requirements for eligibility to the plan. Often employers may establish rules for eligibility based upon hours or length of service with the employer within the permitted confines of the law. Often employers can set eligibility on completion of a certain number of work hours in a year which effectively makes many part time employees ineligible for benefits.
A specific weekly hour threshold exists in the Affordable Care Act. Under the ACA employers must make available compliant health insurance to all employees who regularly work at least thirty hours in a work week. For the purposes of the ACA an employee is full time if the employee works thirty hours in a regular work week. Employers cannot set a higher limit for full time like thirty-two hours or forty hours.
Other benefits or fringe benefits
Employers may offer other benefits not regulated by ERISA or other laws. For these benefits an employer can generally set whatever constraints on eligibility it wishes. (Employers cannot use an unlawful motivation to extend benefits, such as unlawful forms of employment discrimination or in retaliation for complaining about a minimum wage violation.) These benefits include:
- Paid time off (e.g. vacation pay, sick pay, personal days)
- Company car
- Most bonus programs
- Training programs
- Company sport programs
- Free tickets to events
- Raffles
Employers can set limits for work hours, length of service, job title and so forth to make these benefits available. If an employer sets a threshold for work hours as a full time employee for these benefits it may do so and even set different standards for each benefit. Often employers try to target a specific number for consistency, such as fort hours or thirty-two hours for full time employment across benefits; but an employer is free to have a more confusing policy.
Unemployment benefits in Colorado and employment status
Colorado unemployment benefits require that employees work for a given length of time and earn a minimum of $2500 during that period. It does not require an employee to work any specific number of hours in a workweek or for an employer to designate employees as full time employees. So long as an employee meets the length of service and wage minimums then the employee qualifies for a claim. (Assuming the employee otherwise qualifies.)
Some employers as a matter of course pay severance benefits to employees designated as full time employees. Here the issue may be complicated because a severance plan may fall under ERISA regulation but does not necessarily fall under ERISA regulation. The best way to begin answering that question is to review the severance information available from your employer which may include ERISA language.
Denver Employment Lawyer | Denver Labor Law 