The Advantages and Disadvantages of Part-Time and Full-Time Employees

How the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Affects Part-time vs. Full-Time Hours

The FLSA regulates several aspects of employment, including child labor, recordkeeping, minimum wage, and—most importantly for our discussion—overtime. According to the FLSA, you’ll need to pay employees overtime, or time and half pay, if they meet the following criteria:

• They work over 40 hours in a single workweek.
• They’re considered nonexempt, i.e., they’re paid less than 468 dollars per week on an hourly basis, and they don’t perform administrative, executive, or professional duties.

To clarify, exempt employees, though likely working full-time as salaried employees, are not eligible for overtime compensation if they’re paid more than 468 dollars per week on a salaried basis and perform exempt duties.

What does that mean for your full-time employees? Most likely, if they’re hourly workers, it means you’ll need to pay them overtime when they work more than 40 hours a week. If they’re salaried (exempt) employees, you can ask them to work more than 40 hours a week without paying them overtime.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Hiring Part-Time vs. Full-Time Employees?

ALEs, FTEs, ACA, FLSA—what does this acronym salad actually add up to? And what about the intangible benefits and downsides of having part-time versus full-time employees? Let’s break it down for employees and employers.

Full-Time Employees

Part-Time Employees

Why Does the Part-Time vs. Full-Time Definition Matter?

Understanding how part-time versus full-time status affects employees and your organization is part of the delicate balance between what you can ask of employees and what they’re willing to give you. Many factors influence that balancing act, like your compensation package, workplace culture, or rewards and recognition strategies. However, as listed in the pros and cons above, the hours employees work have an effect on all of these factors.

Keeping this balance is the key to a workplace with satisfied employees doing their best for an organization they appreciate. Taking advantage of employees by fiddling with their status doesn’t tip the balance in the employer’s favor—rather, it tends to upend good jobs and create unnecessary turnover.

When (Part-Time) Push Comes to (Full-Time) Shove

Note: We’ve changed the names of all involved.

Here’s a cautionary tale from one of our colleagues, John, on how not to squander talented employees by mishandling their part-time versus full-time status.

In a previous role as a retail manager at a small operation, John hired a friend, we’ll call her Andrea, as a part-time sales associate at the store he managed. Andrea ended up performing so well in her part-time role that John promoted her to assistant manager, a position that would move her to working full-time.

Now that sounds like a hiring dream come true, no? Everyone involved took advantage of all the benefits of part-time work:

• The business didn’t have to spend as much money hiring and training Andrea up front.
• John got to see how well Andrea performed before fully committing to a full-time hire.
• Andrea got to test the waters before jumping straight in with a full-time position.

But this potentially dream scenario was in fact a worst case scenario, especially for Andrea. “She burned out,” John explains. “It was more than she’d wanted, and we were asking too much of her. What started as a fun way to make some money a few days a week became a burden she was only willing to bear out of her friendship with me.”

More commitment from Andrea meant more involvement in the business’s operation and culture, which had major flaws. The business owner simply didn’t invest in or value his full-time employees. Instead, he demanded they work long hours for barely competitive wages, offered meager benefits, and provided no development path for talented workers like Andrea.

John feels that things might have been very different but for the promotion. He points out that “Andrea was a highly educated, hard-working, and smart woman in a dead-end job. She was a great sales associate and a great assistant manager, but she was also smart enough to know that she was worth more.” And so she left the business entirely.

With a better culture, better compensation, and more career development opportunities—like a path to a buyer or regional manager role, for example—Andrea might have been happy as a full-time employee. Or if she had stayed part-time, she might have continued being a super sales associate, energized and productive because she didn’t see it as a burden. “But instead, we lost a great employee,” says John.

Part-Time or Full-Time? Either Way, Do the Right Thing

As with many aspects of HR, there are lots of rules and regulations to consider when looking at the difference between part-time and full-time employees. And while those are certainly important from a budget and compliance perspective, John’s experience with Andrea highlights that employers shouldn’t lose sight of the employee experience as they weigh the pros and cons of different employee schedules. Whether your employees are part-time or full-time, you need to help them feel valued, invested, and successful if you want your business to succeed.