Automatic Charges to Vacation Accrual

Christine M

We have had a problem when employees are absent from work on Friday and they call in to their supervisor. Employees have two leave accounts available to charge work absences against. If the employee calls in sick and either neglects to tell the supervisor which account they wish to use, or when they miscommunicate and the supervisor charges it against the wrong account and it is submitted to payroll (Monday am, multiple shift workers), it creates an accounting problem when the employee requests that the leave be redesignated.

Our current policy states that if a timecard indicates an absence and does not list on the reverse side which leave account the employee wishes to charge the time, will be charged against the employee's PPT (paid personal time) account. PPT is more flexible than vacation in that it can be used in hourly increments, versus full day amounts for vacation. Thus employees frequently request a reversal for time charged against PPT to move it to vacation time.

We are in Massachusetts. Would it be legal if we were to amend our policy so that it states, "If an employee is absent from work for a full shift and does not indicate which benefit they wish to use to cover the time on the timecard, the time will be charged against the employee's vacation accrual. In the absence of any accrued vacation, it will be charged against PPT, and in the absence of both vacation and PPT time, it will be given unpaid and will count toward an occurrence as stated in the Attendance Policy."? We believe this will lead to fewer requests for redesignation of leave but I don't know if we can automatically charge absences against vacation time. (Note: We are unwilling for the employee to take the time unpaid as doing so in the past led to abuse of the attendance policy.)

Sorry for the length of this post, but I thought background was needed. Thank you for your help.

Susan Fentin MA

This change to your policy is fine. Just be sure to give your employees sufficient advance notice and to explain the procedures required and the consequences clearly. Also you might want to have a procedure to deal with changes required when a supervisor misunderstands or misrecords an employee's intent (unless the policy is designed to avoid the supervisor's input altogether by putting the burden on the employee to record the allocation of time, which would also be fine, assuming that there is an opportunity for them to record the time properly before payroll is processed.) Good luck!
Susan Fentin
Associate Editor
Massachusetts Employment Law Letter
[email]sfentin@skoler-abbott.com[/email]

Christine M

Thank you for replying. Very good suggestion as to notifying employees in advance that we will make this change. First shift employees could make the designation on Monday morning prior to time cards going to payroll, but unfortunately 2nd and 3rd do not. I will add something regarding miscommunication with supervisor, but I think that really needs to be addressed by the managers in teaching their supervisors to listen and to ask the right questions.