Exempt employee at home sick and requested to work.

2400689

We are are a public employer with a question concerning an exempt employee and pay.

The exempt employee was home sick and was requested by his superior to complete some reports and projects while he was home. His superior charged this employee for the sick time, even though he worked at home. Are there FLSA laws concerning working at home and being paid?

Our first inclination was to not charge this employee for the sick time, but his superior is disagreeing with us.

Thanks,

Lorie Doughty

Rockie

Just for the darn principle of the thing, I would not charge him sick time. I think it's very presumptious to ask someone on sick leave to work!

NaeNae55

Is your policy to charge partial days to sick leave for exempt employees if they work part of the day (ie: 4 hour blocks)? If so, then you might be able to split the day. That is, only charging the employee's sick leave for hours not worked. However, if you usually work in whole day increments then it seems to me that you should not charge the employee any sick leave at all assuming he/she spent more than a few minutes on the reports. After all, the employee 'worked,' just at home instead of in the office. I have been known to take projects home to work on them so that I could work uninterrupted. No one ever even hinted that it wasn't work time. I have also run in for 1/2 hour when I was sick to help the company out of a jam (only I knew the answer and how to solve). I still used the entire day as sick leave. I guess it depends on how long the employee worked on these reports, and what your policy is for use of leave.

Good luck.

Hatchetman

I've done HR in public sector for 23 years, I say pay him. The exempt employee was required to work on that day. So, you can't dock sick pay unless your governmental entity has enacted ordinance or laws that permit the partial day dock of an exempt employee's pay under 29CFR541.5d.