Comments on: Docking pay for exempt employees: What’s allowed?

By: Terry Bresnahan

Terry Bresnahan — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:27:28 +0000

Ok, here’s a new wrinkle. If we apply PTO to an exempt employee who is on FMLA leave are we required to pay Holiday pay? If an employee is on FMLA and they are covered by a Short Term Disability policy, it was my understanding that we could not “FORCE” PTO. For example, when an employee goes on maternity leave, they are receiving STD but they elect to apply a limited number of PTO hours during their leave to cover their employee contributions for medical and voluntary benefits. So because they applied PTO and the PTO hours are deemed “work” hours – are we then required to pay them for any holiday that falls within that week?

By: Mary D.

Mary D. — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:24:58 +0000

Yonnie: When you asked for a reasonable accomodation under the ADA, did you ask for an amended work schedule? And, if so, was it put in writing? Since you normally work more than an 8 hour workday, an amended work hour schedule would have solved the problem…amended to say 8:30 to 5:30 or a reasonable time to cover your later arrival. Tardiness and STD wouldn’t have been an issue because your workday would have started at 8:30 and ended at 5:30.

Of course, on the otherhand, taking the hard approach…if you knew your condition would cause you problems from 1-3 hours after your wake-up time, maybe you should have taken the responsible approach to adjust your sleep schedule where your condition would not have an affect on your work time arrival. I once had an employee who was late for work by about 5 minutes almost every day. He drove in to work from a neighboring town. When I spoke to him about his tardiness, he always gave an excuse like tied up in traffic (not a big city), had to wait for a train, etc. I told him that maybe he should leave for work 5 to 10 minutes earlier and hopefully that would solve the problem and it did.

As for your disagreement on the time that you were late, I cant’ offer any advice because I don’t know how the policies read.

If you care to share, what was the actual reason for your termination? I know you said because you disagreed with your supervisor about the discipline, but how was your termiantion written up. Your termination seems to be the real issue…is that right?

By: Yonnie

Yonnie — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:45:00 +0000

Sorry I can’t help with the last post. But I need some opinions on this situation: While working as an exempt employee I developed medical issues, causing me to request an accommodation under the ADA and an intermittent leave under the FMLA. Both were approved. The condition I have primarily affects me within 1-3 hours of the time I wake up, and caused me to frequently arrive up to ~25 minutes late. However, because of workload, I frequently worked well over 8 hours a day, sometimes as many as 12. In addition, I was required to carry a BlackBerry and respond to calls on Saturdays. Our company does have short term disability pay available, up to 320 hours a year, and requires both exempt and non-exempt employees to use it for absences. Nothing in the policy says it is to be used for tardies or partial day absences. However, in my case they required me to track any time I was late as disability pay, even if I “made up the time” by working more than 8 hours a day. I have worked as an exempt HR professional for many years and have never had to track my time in less than half day or full day increments, so I assumed they wanted to to round to the closest 5 minutes or 15 minutes. I was told that I needed to track my arrival time to the minute, even though they knew I was making up the time “on the back end” of the day. Ultimately, I was written up for my times not matching with theirs, in many cases citing 1 minute discrepancies! At the rate I was taking the time off, I would never have hit anywhere near the 320 hours of disability pay for a year, and I had medical documentation to support my need to be late. I was aghast after having worked many 55 and 60 hour weeks over the past 3 years. When I disagreed with my boss about the warning, I was terminated. There are other things that they did not handle well, and I am first pursuing an internal complaint against them before considering either regulatory or legal avenues for redress. Technically, my pay was not docked, since they used the disability pay to keep my pay whole. But under the circumstances of the overall hours I was working, it is my position that it is ureasonable for them to expect that I should have to accurately log my “arrival time” down to the minute. I would welcome any opinions or insights—-do you agree or disagree that this expectation was unreasonable?
Thank you in advance for your opinions.

By: mdmkat, GPHR

mdmkat, GPHR — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:16:04 +0000

Question re pay docking:
We have a company-wide work furlough in place at the moment. (It began in Feb. 2009)
All employees, regardless of whether they are exempt or non-exempt, salaried or hourly, are required to take 8 hours unpaid every payroll period (i.e. they are paid 72 hours rather than 80).
The only exceptions are if they use 8 hours of personal or vacation time, or report 80 hours of billable time.
(Example 1: they have 72 hours of work plus 8 hours of vacation so they’ll be paid a full 80. Exmaple 2: they report 80 hours to be billed to a client so they’ll be paid 80 hours).
Recently our payroll company incorrectly paid about a third of our employees their full salary rather than the actual number of hours reported (72). As the person in charge of payroll, I have to dock the overpayments from the next paycheck.
I think we can do this since the company-wide furlough is in place and all employees are treated the same. However, I would like to make sure I’m not missing anything.
One other thing: Sometimes an employee will report even less than 72. That means we end up docking pay above and beyond what is stated in the furlough policy.
Would someone please comment on my situation. Thanks!

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Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:34:54 +0000

[...] Docking allowed for exempt employees: What’s allowed? [...]

By: KP

KP — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:53:43 +0000

I am an employer in Ga and I have several exempt employees. My problem is that my property (equipment) is continuously being damaged due to neglect. I have done some research and have found conflicting results. Is it legal for me to deduct or dock their pay for breaking my equipment? Some of my research says that I can, as long as their pay does not fall below min wage. Also, what are the laws in the same situation regarding non-exempt employees?

By: RandiG

RandiG — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:16:20 +0000

Even the HR consulting firm we employ uses the terms ‘hourly’ and ’salaried’ interchangeably with ‘exempt’ and ‘non-exempt’ — and they are the professionals I go to with questions!

By: Bill SPHR

Bill SPHR — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:49:55 +0000

One main caution for those making these inquires of inside personnel. Though the title may say HR Manager you need to know if that really means HR Professional. Too many companies assign HR duties to clerks or staff with no or little HR background and they unfortunately are left to their own devices to learn on the job. If you ever get a response that the difference between exempt and non-exempt is that one is salaried and one is hourly then you have an issue with the level of knowledge of that individual. The DOL has a contact point anyone can call to answer these questions.

Salaried status is only one part of the distinction between exempt and non-exempt

By: RandiG

RandiG — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:21:18 +0000

Exempt vs. non-exempt is still very misunderstood. I just had an HR manager tell me that the only difference is whether the pay is salary or hourly, which is patently false — but even HR professionals don’t understand it.

Your HR person seems to be skating on thin ice. Think seriously about filing a complaint, particularly if you can document your statements. Since you no longer work there, there’s nothing they can do to retaliate — but I’m not sure if a new employer can access the information about the complaint.

By: KLynn

KLynn — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:04:11 +0000

Does it matter how many employees a company has to have to meet exempt vs. non-expempt? My former employer said all of us were salary and did not pay anyone overtime, but recently docked pay if we didn’t work 80 hours. We are all expecting to work at her beck and call. In the beginning of the year, my dad had brain surgery, my grandmother died, and I was going through a divorce. I missed quite a bit of time, was paid my normal pay, and made up the missed time over the next several months. About 2 months ago or so, my son had the flu and I was not allowed to come to work. I worked everyday from home, not a full 8 hours a day, and I was docked the time under 40 hrs. The three pay periods that followed, I worked at least 45 hours a week, without receiving overtime, then I got sick and missed 4 days of work, but worked from home like I did when my son was sick, I was docked time. She says I have exhausted all of my PTO, but I had to make up all of the time I was paid for the time missed earlier in the year, so that shouldn’t count against my PTO. When I brought this to our then HR person, I was reprimanded and told no one would let me off that much time and still pay me. I don’t think that is the point, she did, and I made up all of the time I was paid. No one at the office is allowed to make decisions without going through her first, so I don’t believe any of us fit exempt status. I am so confused. I don’t work there anymore, so do I lose anything if I file a complaint?