Partial vacation days for exempt employees

JanG

I'm sure this has been discussed already, but if you can give me the benefit of your advice, I would be grateful. We are a service industry, have offices in 12 states and have been trying to break the habit of exempt employee's recording partial vacation days. Several members of our executive committee (a policy setting group) are not convinced that allowing exempt employees to record partial vacation days runs the risk of jepardizing the exemption status. We want benefit time to be recorded in whole day increments. Exempt employees who take a half day off simply work a short day and no benefit time should be recorded. This shouldn't be an issue since most exempt employees work more than 8 hours most days. The people questioning this are using the logic "I've been in the business for 28 years and we've always recorded partial vacation days."

Thanks in advance for your wisdom.

Don D

A policy that requires or permits the taking of vacation or PTO in half-day increments doesn't run afoul of the FLSA. Our problem is somewhat the reverse of yours, i.e., exempt ee's who fudge the day by leaving just after one o'clock and DON'T do the half-day vacation paperwork. Then, our department is the very unpopular "Attendance Police x:=| ", putting forms and post-it-notes on desks advising people to complete the paperwork. Every place I have worked allows the taking of vacation in half or whole day increments and forgets the odd or occasional hour or so absent with exempts. If a policy states that days can be taken only in whole-day increments, you can look for your half day and partial day absences to skyrocket!

JanG

Our senior counsel interprets 29 CFR 541.118 "Deductions made be made however, when the employee absents himself from work for a day or more..." as prohibiting less than full day use of sick or vacation time. Is she being too narrow in her interpretation?

I know this is common, but our Counsel is never fond of using "common practice" as her guide. I'm caught between legal and the executive committee on this one.

Don D

I'll be the first to tell you that my opinion has no foundation in legal training. My understanding is that 29 CFR is addressing DEDUCTIONS from one's pay, not the charging of the time to an ee's vacation bank. I don't consider that a deduction since the ee is being paid for the time missed. Maybe our learned Forum attorneys can weigh in with the bottom line. I do not think that you will find it unlawful to charge time off in increments of half-day vacation time.

Hatchetman

I agree with Don. From my resource material and what I have constantly found in reading on the deduction issue for exempts, DOL looks at the salary, not at fringe benefits. And to the same token, it is okay for the employer to let the exempt employee accrue overtime, even on an hourly basis, once the hours on which the salary is based, or the hours the employee is expected to put in by his schedule, are exceeded.

moneyman

I agree with the two above posts too. In all that I have read, and seminars attended, the focus was on not deducting PAY from an exempt employee for the partial day absences. We also have the practice of applying paid time accrued for 1/2 day and full day and don't worry about the other hours in between. We do have a lot of people scheduling early days of only 3 hours short because they know that they will not get hit in their paid off bank. However, on the other hand, they probably still average more than 40 hours over the year.

JanG

Thanks for sharing your wisdom and experience. We have our legal eagle researching case law and we may give the executive committee the half-day option that they are looking for.

Sally

Then, our department is the very unpopular "Attendance
>Police x:=| ", putting forms and post-it-notes on desks advising
>people to complete the paperwork.

Don--
Just wanted you to know you made my day! I've been increasingly frustrated with people who take sick days or vacation without submitting the paperwork so I can account for it--and frustrated with their supervisors for allowing them to do that. Just knowing I'm not the only one with this problem made me feel better. [By the way, maybe it's not totally PC, but I've been referring to myself as the benefits Gestapo!]

Don D

Sally: This oughta make you feel even better: Not only are you not the only one who has problems with folks turning in their leave paperwork, you are just one among millions. I know for a fact that about half of mine are trying to pull one on us by not having their leave bank charged. If we don't catch it by some means of matching their time sheet with their leave paperwork, they may get off scott free. Any HR person who is truthful (who has a leave paperwork system) will tell you they've had the same problem and it rarely is solved. x:-)

Dana

We do not use the 1/2 day vacation. We give our salaried employees a set number of days (10-25) in a year .

Most of our Exempt employees do work more than the normal 8 hours in a day. We also work summer hours in which we only work 1/2 days on Friday. While our non-exempt employees get to use 4 hours of vacation our salaried employees must use 1 day. This seems to set well with the Non-Exempt employees not feeling like the salaried employees are getting away with something.

Our biggest offender of leaving early is an HR person. GO FIGURE!!

njjel

We have the problem of having 5 separate offices and administration is located in only one of them. Therefore the other 4 outlying offices tend to "bend the rules" and get away with all types of things. Geesh!

Don D

>We have the problem of having 5 separate offices and administration is
>located in only one of them. Therefore the other 4 outlying offices
>tend to "bend the rules" and get away with all types of things.
>Geesh!

The principal can't be in every classroom at the same time. But, the teacher is responsible for enforcing the no-spitball rule. Aren't there responsible, mature staff on board at each location who set the conduct example and the example and standard for following policies?

njjel

Don D - We are SUPPOSED to have those types of supervisors that you mention, in charge of our offices, however some of them are the biggest offenders! The boss knows this and turns his head the other way to them but not to those in his immediate view. Go figure eh?

Gillian

If any of your 12 offices are in California forget about everything that you have read thus far. We do not deduct on a half day basis if for no other reason than we are legally prohibited from doing so. On a practical basis, I don't know why your managers are so bent on counting the half days. I suppose they have forgotten that the poor soul who is getting the half day deduction worked 83 1/2 hours last week to get the product out the door!!!!

Don D

The flip side, Gillian, is that there are plenty of exempt ee's squeaking out a 40 hour week and not an hour more. When the whistle blows, the door slaps them in the a__. This is the reason we utilize the half day vacation leave policy. If we did not, this group would be leaving at least one day a week at 1:40. We balance the program with common sense, working with and rewarding the 83 hour guy but not being as liberal with the 39.99 and 40.01 hours guys. There are no 'problem employees' so I'm not sure what we should call them.

moneyman

That is the view we take. We WANT to limit our administrative employees to 40 hour weeks, and for the most part we succeed. That is why we feel (the employees have agreed) that the 1/2 day policy is faid for both sides. Most exempt can and do leave at the end of an 8 hour day. On a regular basis, some may put in an extra hour a week average, and at other time, perhaps at month end, they might put in a few extra hours. It has worked for us.

Gillian

I agree with Rockie, who is currently at the end. Punishing everyone for the sins of a minority doesn't seem quite right. I've got no problem addressing the problem with the minority, though.

HR in PA

Don,
Are the 40.0 hour people getting their work done?

We encourage our employees to leave at 40 if their work is completed. No one is going to engrave on a tombstone that they worked more than 40 hours a week. If they get the job done, I would praise them. It gives me comfort knowing that our employees are using their time wisely and not spending an extra hour a day sitting at their desk reading the paper so that I think that they are working late.

Rockie

We don't dock PTO for partial day absences for exempt employees. Most of our exempt employees work far more than 40 hour per week and since they don't accrue overtime, we feel it's unfair to "dock" time from their PTO. If they work any portion of the day, they don't have to use their vacation time. Most of these folks don't abuse the system; if we find we have an abuser, we just bring it to their attention.

Marie

Our policy is: Exempt employees who are absent due to illness for more than half a day will have their banked sick leave reduced in half day increments.

If they come in and work for more than 4 hours, they are not charged. If they come in and work less than 4 hours, they do get charged. We do not touch their pay in less than full day increments when they have exhausted the paid time off.

Don D

What if they leave at noon, sick? They didn't work more than 4 hours and they didn't work less than 4 hours. And, do you have problems with people abusing the system by running beyond their number of stated sick paid days, since they know it will not affect their pay?

Gillian

To start with, in California if a person works a partial day they must get paid for the whole day so we are not faced with the 1/2 day issue. To answer your question about abuse, I suppose that there may be an occasional abuse but, by and large, people are too busy doing their job to be spending time figuring out ways to abuse the University. I don't worry about it, but I know that not every environment is like mine.

Don D

Gillian: In my humble opinion, worksites the world over are composed of an almost identical menagerie of mindsets. I'll let Dr. McElfresh confirm or oppose; but, I think no matter what the industry, the location, the educational levels involved or the occupational ranges, workers at every worksite range from; totally trustworthy to completely dishonest and everywhere in between. If you do indeed have a worksite where all is well and all employees are high performers and there are absolutely no slackers, sliders or performance deviants, you may have found the H.R. dream job.

moneyman

I agree, it has been nice to find out (from all of you) that I am not alone in the world of HR. There are some postings that I would swear have been generated out of my office.

Gillian

Yes, I pretty much do have the dream job and I agree that every work place is made up of different mind sets, including those who would abuse whatever is available to abuse. I think the difference that I tried to say is that our approach is different. We don't spend our energy managing to the exception which is what is going on when the emphasis is on enforcement.

Marie

I wouldn't dock their sick time if they worked 4 hours. If we have someone who has used up all the sick time and still come in to work part of a day to get paid for the full day, we have a discipline problem. Unless they are able to complete all their work, then our problem is they don't have enough to do.