Exempt-Time Off
Cat
28 Posts
An exempt employee was out for personal reasons. He has vacation time coming. If he is not charged for vacation day, can he be docked for this day? Or do I either have to charge to vacation, or pay his weekly salary? Thanks!
Comments
The problem with such a policy is that it needs to be applied equally to all exempt employees including any high level (the president, vice presidents, etc.) employees. It is very difficult to administer because most exempt employees, particularly high level employees, interpret that they are being paid for the job they are doing not for the hours they are putting in.
Is it possible that this employee is really non-exempt and should be paid hourly? If they have an habitual attendance problem, this should be addressed with them. In my own situation, if I've worked long hours and need a day to handle personal issues, I would be upset if my vacation was charged when there was no formal policy and there were other exempt personnel who occasionally missed a day here and there and were not charged with a vacation day. I might even be irritated if there was a formal policy. The point of being exempt is like I said in the above paragraph, the employee is being paid for the work performed not for the hours, otherwise the employee should be compensated by the hour.
How does the gov't regulatory staff deal with the reality of jobs in the social service field? Do they want us all to be non-exempt, even if we seem by their tests to be exempt?
Generally, an exempt employee must be paid their full weekly salary for any week in which they work any time at all. The execeptions are 1) in the case of an approved FMLA leave, or 2) in the case of violation of worplace safety rules. Otherwise, deducting even one days pay for time missed would theoretically negate the exempt status of that employee. If you have a practice of doing this with all of your exempt employees the practice would negate their exemptions as a group; a very expensive practice indeed.
There is nothing in the law requiring you to take advantage of a position's exempt status. You can go ahead and treat exempt employees just like your nonexempt. The catch is you must treat them as nonexempt in every way, not just those you pick and choose.