At the request of the Legal and Payroll Departments, a new Paid Break Time payroll code has been created for paid meal breaks of at least 30 minutes or more during which no work is performed. Many of our customers choose to pay employees during their meal breaks, even though they perform no work at all during this time and remain free to leave the worksite or facility. While this is permissible, it has been noted that offices are including these paid meal breaks in the total hours worked for the employee. This has caused employees to receive overtime and accumulate service hours on this time. 

The code to process Paid Break Time is 140.

Paid Break Time for these off-duty, non-working, paid meal breaks of at least 30 minutes or more should be entered as “other” earnings on the time card and should not be included in the employee's total daily hours worked.

However, this code may not be used for rest breaks. It also may not be used for meal breaks that are less than 30 minutes or meal breaks during which employees are interrupted, perform some work, or are restricted to a worksite or facility. Those types of meal breaks are not permitted under Randstad’s policy. You must contact Legal if you have any employees taking on-duty meal breaks.

Please direct any procedural/payroll questions to the Business Services Support Center via phone or chat or email payroll at RUS-PayrollCompliance@randstadusa.com.