Question on an AWOL employee need advice?
lspitters
7 Posts
An exempt employee in MA was potentially awol: Employee can not prove they were working and supervisor can not prove that they were not. Supervisor wants to require employee to use vacation for the 3 days in question. Are we allowed to do this? :help:Employee was on assignment at a client site for 3 months out of the country. Employee is a computer software engineer. The 3 days in question relate to the week he returned. Our employees have some leniency with working from home. When he returned, he worked from home, but did not check-in with his supervisor. He says he was working from home monitoring the client's site and billed his time to the client. The supervisor was not notified the employee was leaving the client site, so he thought the employee was still at the client site. The supervisor learned what happened when he received the employee's electronic timecard via email routing the following week. The supervisor tried to determine if the employee, in fact, monitored the client's site, but could not. When questioned, the employee insisted he was, but could not prove it because he had since been locked out of the client's system. Unable to verify work done, the supervisor could not in good faith allow the client to be billed. To account for the days in question, the supervisor required the employee to post the days to his vacation time. It's been a few months now and the employee wants the vacation back. The employee advised that he's checked with the State of MA who tells him the employer must pay full wages to an exempt employee if the employee was "ready, willing and able" to work. We would say that sitting at home waiting to be told what to do does not qualify as "ready, willing and able" and insist he was AWOL having returned from a 3-month project and not notifying his supervisor. There have been some questions otherwise as to the accounting of this employee's timecards. So, ultimately, the question may be a two-parter:
1. Is the onus on the employer or the employee for accounting of time spent?
2. If there is a question as to an employee's validity of timecard, can the employer require the employee to use vacation time?
Thanks.
1. Is the onus on the employer or the employee for accounting of time spent?
2. If there is a question as to an employee's validity of timecard, can the employer require the employee to use vacation time?
Thanks.
Comments
If the client came back after receiving the invoice and said the employee wasn't there and could not have been monitoring the website from a distance because they had no record of him logging in or interacting with the site, then I would go back to the employee for an explanation. If he couldn't prove he was in fact monitoring the site then I would give him a report in writing for violating the no call/no show policy. If no such policy was in place, then I'd use violation of attendance policy.
As much as it would be tempting to do so, I would not flag the three days as vacation time. I would, instead, treat it as a policy/performance issue. Generally, an employee knows when he has pushed the boundaries and will usually take the slap on the wrist and toe the line going forward. When an employee believes he is being unfairly required to use vacation time in a situation like this one, he may become resentful and perhaps call the DOL to file a complaint. If he's a bit more passive he may just "take back" the vacation time in small increments, for example by taking longer lunches or extended breaks, until he feels he's been recompensed.
With all that said, at this point, I would restore his vacation time, and issue one report in writing for failure to comply with company policy (notification to the supervisor and no call/no show). I would let him know that if he can provide proof of working during those three days the write up would be voided/destroyed. Otherwise, it would remain in his file.
Anyone else have a suggestion for how to handle this situation? Is the above too harsh, not harsh enough? Fair or unfair?
Sharon
PS: Implementing a policy that allow employees 2-3 days off with pay to settle-in after returning from an extended travel period would be beneficial to the employees affected and benefit the company in the long run in terms of morale and employee retention.
Regardless, I would agree with Sharon. I think you have to bite the bullet on this one. You have created a system that has resulted in this situation. There is a pattern of leniency for returning employees and you apparently have no way to know when they are working or not. That's not a defense I would want to take into a wage claim dispute.
From a risk standpoint, I think you are better off to back down and tighten up your policies and procedures before you start playing hardball.
I think the REAL problem here is you don't trust this employee. If that is the case, fine. Deal with that but wait for a situation where you can actually prove wrongdoing or poor performance.