Time Cards

wdn

The company that I work for is interested in setting up a time card program for all employees. If an employee is late 5 minutes would you charge the employee 5 minutes or 15/ 30 minutes? If an exempt employee is late 15 or 20 minutes, can you charge the exempt employee this time. I know that exempt employees are different from your hourly employees? I need some feed back on this issue. This is the first time we will have ever used a time clock.

cthr

Most companies round up/down to the nearest 15 minutes, so if your start time is 8 and the person is 5 minutes late, they would still get paid as if they punched in on time. This is also sometimes governed by state law, so check with your DOL. Does your company have a tardiness policy??

In terms of exempt level employees they are paid the same amount each pay period regardless of the number of hours they work. So no, you cannot subtract time that they may be "late", just as you don't pay them for the "overtime" that they work.

Gillian

The exempt employees shouldn't be punching your time clock, either. Don't create a situation where you appear to be treating exempts the same way as non-exempts when it comes to paying wages. That could come back to haunt you if you get a wage audit in the future.

Peyton Irby MS

while there is no hard and fast rule regarding "rounding" of time spent, most employers use the 15 minute window. if you are keeping time on exempt employees, do so only for the stated purpose of their availibility. docking of exempt employees destroys their exempt status.