Reducing work hours
lnelson
670 Posts
I have not seen a post regarding this issue before so here goes.
Can an employer reduce some not all ee work hours and if so, does it have to be in only 1 dept or arbitrarily. We are looking at reducing 3 ee's hours from 40hrs to 35hrs a week. 2 are in Purchasing dept and 1 is in A/R dept.
The reason for the reduction is these people seem to run out of things to do on a consistant basis. Always asking other ee if anything they can do or help with.
What do all you forumites think??
Can an employer reduce some not all ee work hours and if so, does it have to be in only 1 dept or arbitrarily. We are looking at reducing 3 ee's hours from 40hrs to 35hrs a week. 2 are in Purchasing dept and 1 is in A/R dept.
The reason for the reduction is these people seem to run out of things to do on a consistant basis. Always asking other ee if anything they can do or help with.
What do all you forumites think??
Comments
If you have a business necessity, you may change job conditions (assuming no union). When you decide who to reduce and who not to reduce you better be prepared to demonstrate that such people were selected for legitimate business reasons. And even then, if (even innocently) the people adversely affected are all in some protected category and the ones not suffering hour reduction are not - you could have a disparate impact problem. In disparate impact issues, your reasons could be valid (business wise) but discriminatory none-the-less. If, after you review the selected individuals you feel that there is the potential for disparate impact, you may want to run your issue by an attorney.
It helps if you have valid at-will policies in place - signed by your employees and that such at-will policy states the employer's right to change job conditions.
>
>If you have a business necessity, you may change job conditions
>(assuming no union). When you decide who to reduce and who not to
>reduce you better be prepared to demonstrate that such people were
>selected for legitimate business reasons. And even then, if (even
>innocently) the people adversely affected are all in some protected
>category and the ones not suffering hour reduction are not - you could
>have a disparate impact problem. In disparate impact issues, your
>reasons could be valid (business wise) but discriminatory
>none-the-less. If, after you review the selected individuals you feel
>that there is the potential for disparate impact, you may want to run
>your issue by an attorney.
>
>It helps if you have valid at-will policies in place - signed by your
>employees and that such at-will policy states the employer's right to
>change job conditions.
I am in CA and we are non-union. The reason for the reduction is that there is no other work that these 3 ee's are capable of doing at this time. 2 are women and 1 man so I do not believe any adverse action can be claimed for discrimination. The company is trying desparately to eleviate any unnecessary costs. It would be either lay off/term 1 or 2 of them or reduce hours. We are opting for the reduction of hours. We are hoping this is a very short term situation. Also they are not the only ee's who will be experiencing reduction we are also doing this in our production plant but they are the only office personnel.
All ee's are aware of the At-Will employment through our handbook but I do not believe it details the changing of job conditions.
In our past, other employees have slowed down to fill their day, become less efficient, because of their job security fear that they suddenly developed. Something to consider . . . it backfired on us.
The above post brings up a good idea. Have you considered using the "workforce reduction program" offered by the California Unemployment department?
Basically what happens is that you have a reduction in hours (it shouldn't be permanent - but temporary, but temporary can be a long time)...You DON'T terminate anyone, but the applicable people keep their jobs and the Unemployment Office supplements their income for the hours they loose.
I will try to find the website for this program...
Here is is.
[url]http://www.edd.ca.gov/uirep/de8684.pdf[/url]