Sick Exempt Employee working from Home

System

I have an exempt employee who has been sick for 6 days now, but states that he has been working from home every day. I have asked for a doctor's excuse from him, which I have not received as of yet. I also have been told from the Office Manager that he has, indeed, been making some calls and completing some work orders, but to what extent we don't really know. I do not want other employees to think they can call in sick and have their time not counted against sick leave because they make a few phone calls from home. Can I legally count this time against his sick leave since he is exempt but doing some work?

Thanks for your help.

System

Ahhh, the old sick-but-working-from-home scam. You have every right to forbid him from working at home when he's sick. If he's too sick to drive to work, then he's too sick to perform a full day of quality work.

James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Rockie

I think if someone has been sick for 6 days, they are definitely too ill to be doing any work to amount to anything from home. He really needs to provide a doctors excuse so you can place him on FMLA and charge this against his leave. Once a person has been out more than 3 days, this is considered a serious and chargable illness to FMLA.