Q:  While growing up, I remember my parents talking about getting paid by “piece work”. Now that I manage an office and am more familiar with min wage requirements, I realized this is a term you no longer hear about.  I’m wondering, was paying employees by piece work legal?

A:  This hits close to home for me.

When my family first immigrated to the US in the  early ‘70s, (even though a trained nurse) the first job my mother was able to get in South Florida was as a seamstress at a garment factory. This is back when clothes were made in the USA. I remember her explaining that “at the factory”, they had a choice of either being paid minimum wage ($1.60/hour in those days) or getting paid “piece work”.  She often chose the latter.  She was good, and she was fast. Her specialty was attaching shirt collars.  This way, she was able to get paid more than $12.80 a day (and as much as $16) while working the same 8 hours.

So yes, what you heard your parents talking about is perfectly legal.  It’s just a compensation method most common in labor/production type industries like construction or manufacturing –which I’m guessing your parents were referring to-  and rarely seen in professional office settings.

You can think of the “piece work” concept as another version of incentivized compensation.  We’re used to seeing bonuses as incentives to achieve certain goals and spur higher productivity.  Paying by “piece work” does the same except it’s best suited for jobs where individual effort –not team effort- can be rewarded.  The worker can determine, “I’m just going in today and be on cruise-control”, or they can think “I’m going to bust my butt today and get a lot done and get paid more.”  Their choice.

If you’re guessing that this must complicate record keeping, you’re correct.  Employers are required to keep two sets of data on each employee: hours worked and piece work units. This way you can ensure compensation never falls below minimum wage.    Of course, if someone works over 40 hours, they must get overtime.

So, yes, piece work is legal. But it’s complicated and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have the ideal conditions, industry, individual-effort-job and a way to track all the info.

©Copyright Eva Del Rio

Eva Del Rio is creator of HR Box™ – tools for small businesses and startups. Send questions to Eva@evadelrio.com