The 7 minute rule in NJ is a common practice in which employers round an employee's time to the nearest quarter hour or 15 minutes or payroll purposes.
Although the 7 minute rule in NJ is not mandated by New Jersey Law itself, under the 7 minute rule, an employee's time is rounded down for 1 to 7 minutes past the quarter hour mark, and rounded up for 8 to 14 minutes past the quarter hour mark.
For example, a time of 8:07 a.m. with the 7 minute rule would be rounded back to 8:00 A.M.
How the 7 minute rule in NJ works for rounding down, is for example, say an employee clocks in between 1 and 7 minutes past a quarter house, then their time is rounded back to the start of that quarter hour, for example, 8:07. A.M. becomes 8:00 A.M.
Or for using the 7 minute rule in NJ for rounding up is, if an employee clocks into work between 8 and 14 minutes past a quarter hour, their time is then rounded up to the next quarter hour, for example 8:08 A.M becomes 8:15 P.M.
When using the 7 minute rule in NJ for employees, there's also some important considerations.
In order for the 7 minute rule in NJ to be legal, employers must apply the 7 minute rule consistently, meaning that they cannot always round down to their benefit.
And they must also round in the employee's favor as often as they round in the company's favor.
The practice of the 7 minute rule also aligns with federal guidelines from the Fair Labor Standards Act or FLSA, but New Jersey also has it's own regulations and enforcement policies that regard rounding.
And while New Jersey Law permits the rounding, the state Department of Labor has also clarified that employers cannot have a policy which consistently rounds down to the detriment of the employee.
And any time rounded must also be offset by time rounded up.