Virus Telework Surge Primed for School-Year Reckoning in Court

The traditional management headache of tracking employees’ unscheduled telework hours is headed for a pandemic reckoning this fall as millions of American homes become part office and part virtual classroom.

The pandemic’s pre-summer months showed that teleworking parents’ obligations to assist children with school assignments during the normal workday inevitably led to irregular work schedules and difficulty determining when someone is truly off the clock.

That unpredictability motivated the Labor Department to advise businesses late last month that they’re obligated to pay for remote employees’ unrecorded work time, provided they knew or had reason to believe work was taking place. ...