deduct a day from an exempt employee?

jbanda

I have an exempt employee that we just hire a month ago, he was out for two consecutive days due to illness, can I deduct those 2 days from his salary?, our company doesn't pay for any sick days, and he doesn't have any vacation time available.

Thanks,

Hatchetman

I asume that when you say the company doesn't pay for any sick days that you dont' have accrued sick leave time yhat will cover an exempt employee's absence due to illness or injury.

FLSA regulations provide very definitive situations when an employer is allowed to dock the salary of an exempt employee.

If an exempt (and salaried) employee works in any part of the week, the emplyee is entitled to pay for the entire week. Docking of a day's salary MAY occur when the employee is absent due to injury or illness that if the employer has a paid leave policy, plan or practice to which the employee would be entitled or is entitled but has exhausted benefits that compensates the employee for the absence due to illness or injury. This could be PTO.

If the employee accrues vacation time and your company's practice or policy is to allow employees to use paid vacation time to cover absences due to illness or injury, that would be sufficient, the way I read the provision (see link below). The regulation only requires that the employee be covered by such compensation policy, plan or practice, even if he or she is not yet eligible to receive it or has exhausted its benefits.

If your PTO or banked vacation time would cover such an absence due to illness or injury but the employee hasn't yet accrued to the time or isn't yet eligible to use any accrued time because he is a new employee, then you may dock those two days.

On the other hand, if your paid accrued time policy or practice doesn't allow an employee to use it for illness or injury, then you MAY NOT dock those two days' absences.

Take a look at the FLSA regulations, in the Code of Federal Regulations (volume 29) addressing exempt empolyees at 29CFR541.118(a)(2) and (3).

[url]http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TITLE=29&PART=541&SECTION=118&YEAR=1998&TYPE=TEXT[/url]