Doeck That Exempt New Ee for Holiday!
Don D
9,834 Posts
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-13-03 AT 01:31PM (CST)[/font][p]OBVIOUSLY I MEANT DOCK, NOT DOECK!
Imagine my surprise when I reviewed the company pay register earlier this week. I noticed a negative amount by my name and when I checked I was told that since I was not on board 30 days prior to Good Friday, I was 'docked' a days pay for that day. I'm protesting it up and down the line but find it's an age old application of an extension of the hourly employee handbook that has been applied to salaried exempts as well. Do any of you have such an hourly policy and if you do, does it extend (illegally) to salaried exempts?
Imagine my surprise when I reviewed the company pay register earlier this week. I noticed a negative amount by my name and when I checked I was told that since I was not on board 30 days prior to Good Friday, I was 'docked' a days pay for that day. I'm protesting it up and down the line but find it's an age old application of an extension of the hourly employee handbook that has been applied to salaried exempts as well. Do any of you have such an hourly policy and if you do, does it extend (illegally) to salaried exempts?
Comments
Boy oh boy! I would be pretty upset but only you can pick your battles and choose if this is worth fighting.
Your posting made me go back and take a look at our policy and the computer functionality. All EXEMPTS get a salary regardless of the identification of the day as a work day or a holiday. In order to change that event the payroll clerk (my HR ASSISTANT) must go into the individuals computer changes and change the page data to deduct from an EXEMPT'S PAY. I questioned my assistant about the times that she personally goes into an exempts program and makes an adjustment to the SALARY PER WEEK PAY SCALE! Her response was just about never, unless we, (the company, me, and she) have a person who resigns, and the company makes an agreement to pay the exempt on some different arrangement. Otherwise the EXEMPT"S SALARY is paid in full for the week starting and the week stopping, which includes all holidays. In our case, we have work available every day for the EXEMPT employee.
I suspect you have a payroll clerk is is all powerful and made this rule as you say for a very long period of time and no one has ever questioned the legal nature of the rule. It may not be worth the fight but the ammunition is there starting with the FEDERAL LAW.
I once had a newly graduated college employee in our MIT program, an EXEMPT MANAGER IN TRAINING that questioned our policy of paying holiday pay for the non-exempt employees AT DOUBLE TIME. She wanted to know where her additional 8 hours include in her pay voucher because she had worked on that Thanksgiving holiday. I responded to for her to discuss that with her Manager/Trainer and if he wanted to pay her for the holiday then he should take it out of his pocket because he was supposed to insure she had another day off as compensatory time off. In our policy the exempt ee must take the holiday off or be coordinated and scheduled another day off within the same work week or the one before, of the one after the holiday. No EXEMPT should ever loose the value of the holiday, but we don't pay the value of a holiday when the company allows the ee to work on a holiday!
If the value (amount required to pay to EXEMPTS as back refund of illegal deductions)is large, I would consider how much I am loyal to my new employer and whether a class action law suite might be worth a future retirement action. it is definately a legal action waiting to happen, now who started it (the deduction guideline) and why? is your question!
Good luck! Pork
It's not a computer programming error by any means. It was a manual process whereby an HR ee would go into the HRIS maintenance system and enter a negative amount equalling one day of pay and the payroll system would recognize that. This is the same process used to retro a day or two of a raise that kicks in after a late review, so it's a legitimate process, just incorrectly applied. After a day of research, I find that this is covered in the hourly handbook and there is no salaried handbook, by choice, in this 40k ee organization, which is fine with me. However, it's been interpreted locally to extend to exempts as well. I chose to fight the battle, as I usually am one to do. And won it. Research revealed that two other exempts had this applied to them as well. The current plant supt was hired almost 5 years ago within 30 days of a holiday as was one of our supervisors, two years ago. I managed to correct the system to restore one day's pay to all three of us. I was told by one manager that this appeared to be 'self serving'. My response to that was if had come to my attention regarding ANY exempt, I would have done the same. It just so happened to be myself. A clarification has been run up and down the flagpole in all directions so this will not occur again. I have a very clear backup paper-trail on this in case some jug-head auditor wants an explanation of the minus and plus entries into the system down the road.
I recommend, to all who read "Dandy Don"s" many posting to pay attention to what he writes, most of the time his posting are always right on and his recommended discussions are very helpful; do as I did, and research your systems, and "Employee Handbooks", and written Policy, and the ee that accomplishes the many facits of our HR world to ensure we are correct!
Again, thanks Don! Pork
I've been in HR for 8+ years and have more to learn than I ever realized! (Exempt stuff was handled by other decision makers in my previous HR experience)
Thanks for the post, Don.
I had not thought of it being different for exempt employees. I can see that there is a conflict in the rules and which one takes precedent? I can see both ways being correct. Although the general rule is to pay the same thing every period, and if you are paying an exempt a weekly or bi-weekly salary, then does it matter if any holidays are included in that pay period? But, if a person is not supposed to earn any benefits until a service period is complete, then why should you pay?
"I'd say this is one of those instances where the company shut down of their own accord but you were willing and able to work so they must pay you! Of course, their response will then be 'Don, you could have come in to work...we did not prevent you from coming in that day.' Do you have a key to the building and security access? Was the entire company shut down?"
As long as the company shutdown and prevented the exempt employee from working for that day (and the employee worked during any part of the week), then under FLSA, the exempt employee has to be paid for the "holiday" even if he isn't eligible for "regular" holiday pay.