It might appear odd to revisit the concept of full-time vs. part-time work. In spite of everything, we’ve used the phrases for ages at this level.
However have you ever ever sat down and outlined part-time vs. full-time work at your online business? What it means to be full-time vs. part-time, the distribution of every throughout your groups, and if this distribution greatest serve your targets?
It’s a straightforward train with the potential for an enormous payoff. It will probably make it clearer which employment legal guidelines apply to you (and might profit you and your workers), show you how to construct higher groups, and be a extra environment friendly, worthwhile operation total.
Let’s begin by wanting on the authorized definitions of the 2 varieties of work—or, extra precisely, a scarcity thereof.
What is taken into account a part-time job?
Whereas there’s no concrete definition of part-time work within the US, what separates part-time work from full-time work largely comes all the way down to the variety of working hours.
Right here’s what three governing our bodies should say on the matter:
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- US Division of Labor (DOL): “The Truthful Labor Requirements Act (FLSA) doesn’t outline full-time employment or part-time employment. This can be a matter usually to be decided by the employer.”
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): “Full-time staff are those that often work 35 or extra hours per week. Half-time staff are those that often work fewer than 35 hours per week.”
- Inner Income Service (IRS): “For functions of the employer shared accountability provisions, a full-time worker is, for a calendar month, an worker employed on common not less than 30 hours of service per week, or 130 hours of service per 30 days.”
When it comes to authority, you could wish to hearken to the DOL and IRS greater than the BLS.
That’s as a result of the BLS’s definitions of full time and half time come from the Present Inhabitants Survey (CPS) and are for statistical functions solely. This implies their definitions, whereas helpful in letting you understand how part-time work is presently being outlined by actual US employers, aren’t authorized definitions.
With all of this in thoughts, we are able to loosely outline a part-time job within the US as:
- A job with fewer than 30 working hours per week, or 130 hours per 30 days, except in any other case outlined by the employer.
Kinds of part-time jobs
There are numerous jobs that may be fulfilled on a part-time foundation. A few of the commonest embrace:
- Retail positions (cashier, gross sales affiliate)
- Customer support consultant
- Receptionist or entrance desk positions
- Administrative assistant
- Knowledge entry clerk
- Meals service jobs (waiter/waitress, barista)
- Tutor or educating assistant
- Freelance or gig work (writing, graphic design, programming)
- Library assistant or clerk
- Name heart operator
- Private assistant or secretary
- Occasion employees or coordinator
- Childcare supplier or babysitter
- Health teacher or private coach
- Dwelling well being aide or caregiver
- Receptionist or entrance desk positions
- Telemarketer
- Analysis assistant
- Supply driver
What’s a full-time job?
Like with part-time work, there’s nobody authorized definition of full-time work within the US.
Nevertheless, constructing on our unfastened definition of part-time work as 30 or fewer working hours per week, we are able to loosely outline a full-time job within the US as:
- A job with 31-40 working hours per week (usually nearer to 40), or as outlined by the employer.
Kinds of full-time jobs
Some jobs which can be extra sometimes crammed on a full-time foundation embrace:
- Software program developer or programmer
- Registered nurse or healthcare skilled
- Accountant or monetary analyst
- Advertising supervisor or specialist
- Human assets supervisor or specialist
- Venture supervisor
- Gross sales consultant or gross sales supervisor
- Instructor or educator
- Engineer (civil, mechanical, electrical, and many others.)
- Operations supervisor
- Customer support supervisor
- IT (Info Know-how) specialist or administrator
- Lawyer or authorized assistant
- Managerial roles in retail, hospitality, or different industries
- Monetary advisor or planner
- Scientist or researcher
- Social employee
- Electrician or plumber
- Police officer or legislation enforcement skilled
- Architect
- Graphic designer or artwork director
Execs and cons of part-time jobs
Execs of part-time jobs
- Flexibility: Having part-time staff makes scheduling simpler. You possibly can regulate staffing ranges primarily based on our enterprise wants, and extra simply discover fill-ins if somebody calls in sick.
- Value financial savings: Pay, advantages, and different worker prices are sometimes decrease with part-time workers than with full-time ones.
- Various ability units: The much less dedicated nature of part-time work makes bringing in new individuals simpler, which is usually a blessing in the event you want specialised experience for particular duties.
- Adaptability: As demand wavers, you may simply improve and reduce your workforce’s capability with part-time staff.
- Elevated productiveness: Working fewer hours, part-time staff can carry extra vitality to their jobs.
- Entry to a bigger labor pool: You possibly can faucet right into a broader pool of accessible staff, corresponding to college students, retirees, and people looking for supplemental earnings for part-time positions.
- Threat mitigation: Much less dedication means much less danger throughout unsure occasions.
Cons of part-time jobs
- Lowered continuity: Half-time staff, given their completely different schedules, might not have the identical degree of dedication and continuity as your full-time workforce members. This might doubtlessly influence your workforce’s cohesion.
- Coaching prices: Coping with fixed turnover amongst part-time workers might lead to increased coaching prices, as new hires would possibly want extra frequent onboarding.
- Much less worker engagement: Half-time staff may not really feel as related to your organization tradition, resulting in decrease ranges of engagement and loyalty.
- Doable communication challenges: Juggling the various schedules of part-time staff would possibly introduce some communication and coordination challenges.
- Potential for burnout: Half-time staff might produce other obligations outdoors of their job with you, which could imply burnout from burning the candle at each ends.
Execs and cons of full-time jobs
Execs of full-time jobs
- Consistency and stability: The peace of getting secure, full-time workers is likely to be price greater than what you’d save bringing in part-time staff.
- Larger dedication: Anticipate increased ranges of dedication to your organization, targets, and long-term success.
- Profession improvement: Full-time staff usually tend to develop and advance inside your organization.
- Funding in coaching: It’s simpler to take a position when you realize somebody’s going to be round for some time.
- Higher workforce integration: Familiarity and consistency lends to workforce bonding, and a bonded workforce means a extra productive, glad workforce.
Cons of full-time jobs
- Larger prices: Going full-time usually means extra advantages like medical insurance and retirement plans, bumping up your total labor prices.
- Lowered flexibility: Full-time staff may not have the identical wiggle room of their schedules, making it trickier to shortly adapt when workloads change or somebody calls in sick.
- Potential for burnout: Longer hours means extra of a danger of burnout, particularly over prolonged durations of time.
- Restricted entry to specialised abilities: Bringing in a part-time employee for a particular ability or process is so much simpler (and sometimes extra inexpensive).
- Much less adaptability: If one thing adjustments at your organization, reorganizing a full-time workforce is usually tougher.
Funds and advantages
Hours labored is a method through which part-time and full-time workers differ; one other is how they’re paid and the advantages they obtain.
Half-time cost and advantages
There’s no legislation stating how part-time workers should be paid. That mentioned, the commonest option to pay part-time workers is by the hour.
A time clock begins when part-time workers clock in for work at first of the day, pauses once they go for break or lunch, resumes afterward, and ends at any time when they depart for the day. The overall time labored throughout this time is what their paychecks are primarily based on.
In the event you pay workers by the hour, you need to not less than pay them your state’s authorized minimal wage. In case your state doesn’t have a minimal wage, you need to not less than pay them the federal minimal wage of $7.25 an hour.
In circumstances the place part-time work exceeds 40 hours per week (keep in mind, there isn’t a said authorized boundary separating part-time from full-time work), you additionally should pay time beyond regulation. Based on the Division of Labor, time beyond regulation pay is “not lower than time and one-half the common charge of pay for all hours labored over 40 hours in a workweek.
For instance, in the event you usually pay somebody $10 an hour, you would want to pay them not less than $15 an hour for time beyond regulation.
Needless to say time beyond regulation solely applies to non-exempt staff, who’re each hourly and salaried staff that:
- Earn lower than $684 per week or $35,568 yearly
- Carry out job duties outdoors of the exempt professions
Aside from being paid hourly, part-time staff might obtain a set wage or a predetermined quantity for finishing a particular mission or process
There may also be mixtures of cost strategies. For instance, somebody could also be paid by the hour and earn a fee on gross sales they make.
Do part-time workers get advantages?
US legislation doesn’t cowl the supply of advantages to part-time workers.
Which means that, so long as you observe all minimal federal, state, and native necessities, you’ve gotten management over which part-time workers get which advantages, if any.
Full-time cost and advantages
Past what’s required within the Truthful Labor Requirements Act (FLSA), the US authorities doesn’t mandate how full-time workers are to be paid.
Whereas full-time workers might be paid hourly, they mostly obtain a set wage. That is most frequently a lump sum paid month-to-month, or bi-monthly, primarily based on an assumed, ongoing 40-hour-per-week dedication.
The identical guidelines outlined above round time beyond regulation apply to full-time work: If a non-exempt full-time worker works greater than 40 hours per week, that worker is entitled to time beyond regulation pay.
Do full-time workers get advantages?
Largely talking, you’re not required by legislation to present full-time workers advantages, which might embrace:
- Medical insurance
- Retirement plans (e.g., 401(okay))
- Paid time without work (trip, holidays, sick depart)
- Life insurance coverage
- Incapacity insurance coverage
- Versatile spending accounts (FSAs)
- Well being financial savings accounts (HSAs)
- Worker help packages (EAPs)
- Academic help/tuition reimbursement
- Wellness packages
- Versatile work preparations
- Worker reductions
Typically, you are required to offer advantages. Contemplate these examples (learn extra about every of those acts within the part under):
- The Inexpensive Care Act (ACA) requires relevant massive employers (these with 50 or extra full-time equal workers) to supply inexpensive medical insurance that meets sure minimal important protection requirements.
- The Household and Medical Depart Act (FMLA) requires coated employers to offer eligible workers with unpaid, job-protected depart for specified household and medical causes. Nevertheless, that is depart with out pay.
It additionally relies on the place you’re situated within the nation, as there are state and native laws regarding advantages. For instance, in Massachusetts, workers who work for employers having 11 or extra workers might earn and use as much as 40 hours of paid sick time per calendar 12 months.
Outdoors of those conditions, which advantages you present—and to whom—is essentially as much as you.
Full-time and part-time employment legislation
In your personal analysis, we advocate studying these items of laws on the subject of full- vs. part-time jobs.
Truthful Labor Requirements Act (FLSA)
The Truthful Labor Requirements Act (FLSA) establishes minimal wage, time beyond regulation pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment requirements affecting workers within the non-public sector and in Federal, State, and native governments.
The Inexpensive Care Act (ACA)
The “Inexpensive Care Act” (ACA) is the title for the excellent well being care reform legislation (handed in 2010) and its amendments. The legislation addresses medical insurance protection, well being care prices, and preventive care.
Worker Retirement Revenue Safety Act (ERISA)
The Worker Retirement Revenue Safety Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal legislation that units minimal requirements for many voluntarily established retirement and well being plans in non-public business to offer safety for people in these plans.
The Household and Medical Depart Act (FMLA)
The FMLA entitles eligible workers of coated employers to take unpaid, job-protected depart for specified household and medical causes with continuation of group medical insurance protection underneath the identical phrases and situations as if the worker had not taken depart.
