Exempt Attendance Policy?

amc

We are trying to develop an attendance control program for our exempt group. Unfortunatly, we don't have controls in place and we now have attendance concerns within this group. Thoughts? Does anyone have a policy in their company? What are the guidelines?

If yes, is this linked to an exempt sick/personal policy in any way? Thanks for your help!

Gillian

Be careful. Exempt employees are paid to do their job, regardless of the number of hours, which might be more or less than 40. If you have employees who are consistently working less than 40 maybe you have part time jobs. Writing formal attendance policies for exempt employees is not a good idea, because it makes them accountable for hours, just like non-exempt. The best way is to deal with the issue through corrective action for problems which are created if they are not doing their job.

Rockie

I agree. You cannot expect a person to work 45-50+ hours a week on some weeks to get a job done and then try to hold them accountable if they take off early on Friday. They are not compensated on hourly basis, so consequently, you cannot track their time on an hourly basis. You are playing a dangerous game if you try to do this and may be hit with a very large DOL claim.

As stated, if you see where their job is not getting done,then it's time to attack it from a performance perspective.

LFernandes

I have all of our exempt employees fill out an attendance controller each moth just listing what days they have taken off as sick, personal time or as vacation. The attendance controller is just a calendar of the month being reported on. Whatever time they've used is deducted from their accrued time but they are still paid their regular salary.

Just because they are exempt doesn't mean that you don't have to keep attendance records for them. You can find more information on recordkeeping requirements for exempt employees at:

[url]http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_516/29CFR516.12.htm[/url]

Dottie

In our situation, part of the responsibilities for our exempt employees involves being present on the property to service the members. We are open 364 days a year from as early as 5:30 a.m. to as late as 11:00 p.m. Consequently, very few of our exempt employees have a 9-5 type schedule. What we do require is for each of them to submit a schedule each week for the upcoming week, letting us know when they will be on the property. We need to know this so that we know when and where we can reach them if needed, as well as if they are giving their department the coverage that is required. If one of these people must be away during a time they said they would be on the property, it is their responsibility to notify a point person who maintains the schedule. If we find one of our exempt employees deviating from their posted schedule on a regular basis, we sit down with them and revisit their employment to determine if this position is the right fit for them. So far, this approach has worked very well.