Can we withhold $ from salaried employee?

We had an employee who gave her notice that she was quitting on a Friday morning. She said that day would be her last. She spent the morning packing up her things and was out the door by 11:00 a.m. To our knowledge, she did very little work, if any. Her position was an assistant manager and she received a salary. Our office is in Missouri. We would like to withhold a day's wages from her final paycheck, because although she came in, she did not perform any of the duties she is to be paid for. Any liability here?

Comments

  • 4 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Under FLSA you are allowed to pay her for only the hours she worked on her last day. Don't get into a stupid argument whether her packing up constitutes work or not. Pay her for the three hours and be done with it.
  • Thanks for the response. She is a salaried, exempt employee though. How do I pay her by the hour?
  • If she is truly an exempt employee you can pay her for only the hours worked as this is her last week. The exceptions to the 40 hour rule for exempt is first and last week of employment if work less than 40 hours.
  • Calculate it based as a prorated portion of the daily salary.

    For example if the the emplye was suppose to work 5 days in that week, then each day would bbe worth 1/5 of the weekly salary.

    If the expectation in the work schedule is that she work 8 hours each work day, then take 3/8 of that daily salary. Or you could take the total actually hours worked for that last week as a percentage of th total hours the emplyee is expected to work under the salary and then use that percentage of the weekly salary.

    There are probably a couple of ways to calculate it but I think the approach I'm taking is most consistent with the way DOL/FLSA views it.


    "541.118(c):

    Failure to pay the full salary in the initial or terminal week of employment is not considered inconsistent with the salary basis of payment. In such weeks the payment of a proportionate part of the employee's salary for the time actually
    worked will meet the requirement...."

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