How to handle furloughs
Sally
117 Posts
As a result of another bad year for our not-for-profit organization, it appears last year's salary freezes will be this year's pay cuts for the administrative staff. What our executive director proposes to do is something that has been done with other orchestras (and I will post the question to them as well) and that is two week staff furloughs. Instead of two consecutive weeks, what he is proposing is one day per month off work without pay. Because our administrative staff only numbers 20-25 people I can easily handle the tracking. What my question relates to is their pay--our Finance Director would like to decrease everyone's salary and spread it over the remainder of the season, instead of the no-pay day being reflected in the pay period in which it actually occurs. Is that the right way to handle it? Of course, then that also puts me in the position of going to employees and saying "you haven't taken your day off without pay yet this month and you need to do it by such & such date." Which not only makes me the gestapo, but also means I'm rubbing salt in the wounds.
Okay HR gurus, how would you handle this?
Okay HR gurus, how would you handle this?
Comments
non-exmept" (are they paid hourly or salaired? do they get "time-and-a-half" for over time? For exempts, you need to be vary careful on how you set up the furlough: One day a month will not result in their salary being reduced since they will be working at least part of a work week during that week and the absence on the furlough day is imposed by the organization.
If you do the reduction in salary for exempts, that may be okay. However, you may not reduce the expected hours of work the exempt is to work because of that reduction in salary. If the work schedule is reduced becasue of the reduction in salary, you will then be linking the salary to the hours of work, which would jeopardize the exempt status.
Thanks!