Sloppy Timekeeping, Not Bad Intent, Fuels Wage Claims Against Contractors
Sloppy time records, not deliberate wage theft, are the real driver behind costly wage-and-hour claims hitting contractors, according to a Construction Dive opinion piece by Workyard CEO and co-founder Nic De Bonis.
Market Impact
De Bonis writes that in sales conversations with more than 180 mid-market construction contractors, nearly half raised payroll efficiency or workforce visibility as their concern, but only 4% named compliance or legal exposure. Among contractors still tracking time on paper or spreadsheets, 72% never raised a compliance concern at all during those conversations.
The exposure is real. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, workers have two years to file a claim, or three if a violation is deemed willful, and employers must be able to reconstruct every relevant shift after the fact. De Bonis notes that back wages can be doubled through liquidated damages, meaning a $50,000 overtime dispute can become $100,000 before attorney fees. He cites Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division figures showing more than $259 million recovered for nearly 177,000 workers in fiscal year 2025, and a construction-specific enforcement push that produced more than 3,000 investigations and $36 million recovered for 21,000 workers in a single year. The most common violations found were overtime miscalculations, uncompensated travel time and undocumented breaks, which De Bonis characterizes as records failures rather than pay failures.
What It Means for Subcontractors
- Audit current timekeeping now, not after a claim: paper sign-in sheets and Excel files with no change history won’t hold up if a former employee disputes hours worked, per De Bonis.
- Build break documentation into daily process. Multiple contractors described in the article had no record proving crews took lunch or rest breaks, which became the basis for legal claims.
- Adopt systems with three specific features De Bonis flags as effective: clock-in/out sign-offs confirming breaks were taken, GPS as a secondary accuracy check, and automatic logging of every time card edit with weekly approval before payroll runs.
- Treat time records as legal documents, not just payroll tools. An attorney or DOL investigator evaluates whether hours can be proven, not just whether pay was accurate, so foremen collecting only start-of-shift signatures leaves midday and end-of-shift hours undocumented and vulnerable.
- Factor in the FLSA’s two-year filing window (three years for willful violations) when deciding how long to retain and how rigorously to verify time records, since claims can surface long after a job wraps.
