It was noted that you recommend 20-30 minutes for a morning huddle. Is this 20-30 minutes considered paid time where the employees clock in? And if so, considering that a practice would have an 8 hour day after the morning huddle, would everyone be receiving 20-30 minutes of overtime pay due to the morning huddles?

ANSWER:  Yes, the employees need to be paid for the huddle. Anytime the employees are required to do anything, such as be there for the morning huddle, they have to be paid.

I am not an HR specialist and each state is different, so I suggest you check with someone who knows your state laws but normally, over 8 hours a day is overtime. You have a couple options.[mepr-show if=”loggedout”][/mepr-show] [mepr-active memberships=”629,630,37388,37393,37672,37676,37670,37668,37674,44674,232156″ ifallowed=”show” unauth=”message” unauth_message=”Answer hidden, please login or purchase a membership to view.”] You could do different start and end times so that some of your team is in the huddle but they leave 15 min early at the end of the day and the second group comes in later and leaves later. It is important than that those that are in the huddle, transfer the information to those that come later. Or you could end the day a bit earlier or you can just pay 15 min of overtime. Again, this really is more of an HR/legal question but those are my opinions of options of how you can handle this.

The purpose behind your morning huddle is to get your entire team on the same page with your current days schedule and head off any questions or concerns that may come up through out the day. This will help to keep the flow of the office running smoothly with the least amount of bumps in the day. Most offices find this as a valuable time of the day and strive to keep the huddle informative and motivating. Huddles can vary from office to office but range anywhere from 15-30 minutes. You can use huddle to review previous day activity, current day and the next day to help with maintaining office goals and consistency. Take a look at our sample of a Morning Huddle Agenda so you can see the valuable information reviewed during that meeting.

Download your copy of our “Morning Huddle Form” here, then customize to make unique to your own practice.[/mepr-active]