Risky Question?

System

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 08-19-02 AT 11:27AM (CST)[/font][p]Well, I will take the risk of being electronically stoned by my fellow
HR wizards and ask the question. I recently took a position with an
institution that provides private research and experential education.
We employ mostly eductors and professionals, and classify them with
exempt status. We do have a Paid Time Off policy. In the past, and yes, currently employees have been docked using PTO, BUT not on a consistent basis.
Some employees have been allowed to use (oh no the C word) "comp"
time.
I would like to start fresh and put in place a new policy of taking PTO
when they are out for a full day. Partial days will not be docked. No
More "comp" days.
How best can I do this so that we will not have repercussions from the past of docking employees 1 - 2 hours, etc using PTO?

We anticipate restructuring our compensation program soon, I thought that this might be a good time to put the policy in place. What do you think?

Carol CA

I'm not sure I understood your post correctly -- are you saying that you will deduct a full day of PTO even if they only take a partial day? I would think you would get a lot of flack for that!

I think you are OK having an exempt use the PTO for partial days, but if later they run out of PTO, you are still going to have to pay them for any partial day they come in to work.

System

Carol, no I don't want to deduct for partial days, that was done in the past. The question really was how best to go about changing what they had done in
the past to full days docks, without having ee's come back at us and want
reimbursement for the partial days docked.

CarolA

I understand your issue. I had the same one. You can write a new policy. We made the effective date 30 days from the time we communicated it to everyone to give them notice of the change. We outlined exactly how PTO was earned, can be used and the rollover procedure if all hours were not used.

I also very specifically wrote that if a salaried employee needs to be out of the office for a personal reason, not related to sick for less than 4 hours that time will be paid and not deducted from PTO.

If a salaried person needs to be out of the office for 4 or more hours in a day for a personal reason and not related to sick, our policy will be to apply PTO to the missed time. If PTO is not available then the missed time will not be paid.

I also reminded in the updated policy that the company's success is based on employee's regular, daily attendance. Our benchmark for unplanned, non-FMLA missed time is 5 days in any 12 month period. Excessive absenteeism or lateness adversely affects the level of expected service, qality and professionalism provided to our clients and their co-workers. Excessive absences may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.

We did not have anyone complain since we gave notice in advance of the change and were very clear with policy specifics. You may want to have an attorney reveiw before you implement.

CarolA

I do need to add that if a salaried person ran out of PTO and had a partial missed day, we would pay their full salary for the day since they are salaried. The missed time is without pay if a full day is missed and the salaried employee does not have PTO to cover it.

If this type of absence becomes excessive we counsel and give a written warning to improve or terminate if the missed time continues.

Ty

Carol what does your PTO time include? Is your sick time on a seperate policy

CarolA

Sick is separate. Since they are salaried they do not earn sick time. However our benchmark is 5 nonfmla sick days in any 12 month period. If this is exceeded we counsel, if continues we issue a warning, etc.