Here’s a scenario that may describe your organization: You grant nonexempt employees two 10-minute work breaks a day, for which you pay them. That’s in addition to their unpaid lunch break. Problem is, most of your employees have gotten used to extending the 10 minutes to 15 or 20. You sent out a reminder memo that only 10 minutes are allowed, but it had no effect. Now what?

According to the U.S. Labor Department (DOL), you can refuse to pay employees for any more than 10 minutes, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). FLSA doesn’t require you to provide work breaks (except for a recent change regarding lactation breaks), but many employers do so. And, FLSA’s position has been that such breaks tend to refresh employees and make them more efficient. But does that mean you can’t limit the amount of time you wish to grant? No, it doesn’t.

DOL’s internal enforcement manual advises that unauthorized break extensions need not be classified as work time. But here’s the catch: You absolutely must advise employees that

1. authorized breaks are limited to X minutes;
2. any extension of those breaks is against the rules; and
3. such extensions will be punished.

If you’re having a problem with overextended work breaks, you need not only to adopt a policy like the three-point one detailed here, but also to be able to show in court that you’ve informed employees of it frequently and regularly enough that they are fully aware of it.

Consider that there may be at least three different kinds of breaks: Bona fide meal breaks that are not typically compensated, “short” rest breaks of 20 minutes or less that are typically compensated, and other kinds of breaks—neither meal breaks nor short rests but including lactation breaks—which may or may not be compensated. Many employers assume that when an employee stretches a 10-minute to 20 minutes, FLSA doesn’t allow the extra time to be treated as noncompensable.

Short rest breaks need not be an either/or proposition—paid or unpaid. They can be both, in the sense that you will compensate for some time but not necessarily for all the time employees may take. DOL has said in an opinion letter from the Acting Administrator that “only the length of the unauthorized extension of an authorized break will not be considered hours worked when the three conditions are met, not the entire break.”

Tip: Although FLSA does not require paid breaks for nonexempt employees, remember that some states (California is an example) do require them, based on the number of uninterrupted hours of work employees may cover in their shifts.