Fmla & Exempt employee

denisek

We have an employee who was hourly and just came off of FMLA which she opted to take the first two weeks without pay and then used accrued sick time for the remaing time off. Since she has returned she has been changed to an exempt status employee. We are aware that she will be out on FMLA again in the next couple months. My question is this--This time when she is out on FMLA and has exhausted her paid accrued time-if she comes back half days vs. whole days for a period of time-do we have to pay her for a full day of work being she no longer has any accrued time remaining and being she is exempt.

Terry

I believe that FMLA is the "loophole" so to speak when it comes to paying exempt employees. If the employee reqularly works a 40 hour week and then goes to approximatly 20 hours, you can reduce pay by the equivalent percentage, in this case 50% and charge the balance of time towards her FMLA entitlement. You may find more info on FMLA at the DOL page [url]http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/benefits-leave/fmla.htm[/url]

Hatchetman

I'm not quite sure what the FMLA status of the employee will be when she returns to work after having gone out on FMLA next time. When she returns will she be on FMLA reduced leave (in other words, she's a full time employee, but her medical condition doesn't allow her to work full time for a period of time, until she's recovered). Or, upon her return to work, will FMLA leave have been exhausted? If the latter, why would she work less than full time?

To answer your quesiton just based upon possibilities, if upon her return she is working less hours because of FMLA reduced leave, then you MAY dock her pay for the hours each day that she is absent without jeopardizing her exempt status. There is a way to calculate it. If she runs out of FMLA time while on a reduced schedule then the following paragraph would apply at that point.

If, however, she is out of FMLA leave time, or the reduction in time is NOT based upon an FMLA qualifying reason, then you MAY NOT dock her pay except in full day increments as provided by FLSA. So, if she is out due to illness but is not under FMLA leave, because she ran out of the 12 weeks or the illness doesn't qualify under FMLA, then you would have to pay her a full day's salary for any partial day's work. To do otherwise would jeopardize her exempt status and perhaps any other employee who does the same job who is also exempt.

By the way, in switching her from non-exempt to exempt, I assume HR and the manager justified and fully documented the change, in case you get an inquiry from your state or federal labor department.

Don D

In a similar scenario, we have an engineer who has just exhausted FMLA in the case of his wife's cancer and the company has graciously decided to continue with his need to attend to her needs a couple of hours a day, in effect continuing with his intermittent absences. He's also out of leave and has to leave here somedays at noon. It's my understanding that we can't tally up those hours and charge them against his payroll in one day increments. Or can we? We have no State related regulations, only FLSA and FMLA.