Overview
New York State's Spread of Hours rule requires that employees in restaurants and all-year hotels receive an additional hour of pay at the basic minimum hourly rate when their spread of hours exceeds 10 hours in a single day. This payment is in addition to their normal wages for hours worked.
If you are unsure whether this rule applies to your business, consult your payroll advisor or refer to the Hospitality Industry Wage Order (CR146).
Availability
The Spread of Hours compliance rule is a Premium feature, available to all Premium SocialSchedules accounts.
What is a spread of hours?
A spread of hours is the total time from the start of an employee's first shift to the end of their last shift in a single workday — including any breaks (paid or unpaid) or time off in between.
Example: An employee works 7:00 am – 10:00 am, then returns for a second shift from 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm. They worked 6 hours in total, but their spread of hours is 15 hours — making them eligible for the Spread of Hours payment.
A workday is a consecutive 24-hour period that begins at the same time each day. This may vary by employee. SocialSchedules uses the employee's start time of day, as set on their employee profile, to define their workday.
Example: If an employee's start time of day is 4:00 am, their workday runs from 4:00 am to 3:59:59 am the following day.
How is the payment calculated?
When an employee's spread of hours exceeds 10 hours in a day, they are entitled to 1 additional hour of pay at the basic minimum hourly rate for their location.
The payment is always based on the basic minimum hourly rate — not the employee's actual hourly rate. This applies even if the employee earns more than minimum wage.
Configuring Spread of Hours in SocialSchedules
To set up the Spread of Hours rule:
Go to Settings > Compliance > Additional pay rules.
Toggle the rule on using the switch next to Spread of hours.
The threshold is set to 10 hours by default. Adjust this if required.
Set an export code if you use payroll export.
Under Warnings & restrictions, choose how SocialSchedules should respond when the rule is triggered:
Take no action — the rule is tracked but no alert is shown.
Mark as warning in shifts and timecards (recommended) — a warning is displayed so managers can review.
Restrict from schedule — prevents shifts from being scheduled that would trigger the rule.
Click Done to save.
Setting the minimum wage
The minimum wage used in this rule must be set on the Additional pay rules screen. If you have locations with different minimum wages, you'll need to create a separate compliance group for each one.
