Pay Practices Policy - Exempt vs. Non Exempt

KHelgeson

I'm attempting to develop a policy that outlines "simply" for payroll purposes how to process pay in various problem areas. Any assistance is appreciated.

Exempt staff performing duties (Saturday/Sunday) of a non-exempt position and expecting to receive hourly compensation.

Exempt staff taking a day off and wanting to choose whether or not they are paid for the time from their PTO bank(as required by the Paid-Time-Off policy). We do not deduct for less than a full day absence.

Any use of comp time for exempt staff.

Down_the_Middle

I think addt'l information is needed b/4 commenting on the exempt person wanting to be paid for Sat-Sun N/E work.......such as, what is their exempt category during the normal 5 day work week..... are they prof,admin or executive? Paying an exempt Director/Manager who fills in for N/E staff on the week-ends is NOT something that I think is appropriate, but there are other situations where I can see it would make sense on an occasional basis. A person might not satisfy the long test, but would be considered exempt using the short test (e.g. working supervisor).

With regard to exempt staff taking a day off and choosing how or whether they are paid, absences of a day or more (for personal reasons) can either be w/o pay or they can be required to use accrued, unused PTO. I believe the latter is most commonly done and eliminates the dilemma of exempt staff taking time off w/o pay and having alot of PTO to use at year-end.

Regarding the comp time issue for exempt staff........ My opinion is to stay away from that entirely. I think you'll be asking for trouble by permitting this to happen. Exempt staff are normally paid a salary for what they do and there's no extra pay for doing what the job requires......... Refer to the FSLA issues for more info on this topic.....

CuriousG

My 2 cents on your three inquiries

1) I tend to take the tack of "flee the appearance of evil" when dealing with exempt staff. In this case, the "evil" is paying an exempt employee as a nonexempt. You need to be careful that your exempt employee's hours worked at exempt duties will be sufficient to maintain their exemption when your add in the hours of nonexempt "fill-in". This is a part of the "long-test" Down The Middle mentions.

2) Regarding your exempt employees wanting to "choose" when to use PTO time or not; I would think that your PTO policy would state whether or not they have that freedom. Usually when a PTO policy is implemented it is to control this practice. I would want the circumstances clearly stated when an employee get's paid PTO, and when they take unpaid leave. Usually I would say something like "Employees' PTO accounts will be charged for all Personal Time Off until their account is exhausted each year. Additional personal time off in excess of the account balance will be taken on an unpaid basis." This sets the priority for paid and unpaid PTO and takes the guess work out of administering the policy.

3) As for exempt employees wanting to track their time and take Compensatory Time for hours worked in excess of 40 each week, it sounds like they still perceive themselves as nonexempt personnel. First ask yourself, could it be that we have them misclassified-does the work they are doing truly pass the appropriate exemption test(s) or have we based the exemption on a misapplied Title such as Administrator,Supervisor or Coordinator?

If the answer to this question is "yes" then I think you need to have a heart to heart talk with the employees in question. I would guess that these may be the first "exempt" positions these employees have held and they have not made the mental adjustment of perceiving themselves as exempt from overtime. If these are supervisors or managers, then I suggest you have a morale problem, and you need to start digging for it's true source-and it most likely is not the hours of work.

Rockie

We had a lot of working managers in our medical practice. From time to time, they have to work several Saturdays in a row (to get the job done) and therefore, may take a day during the week to take care of issues they have not been able to take care of otherwise. As long as this is not an every week occurrence, we just don't track the time of an exempt person. If they truly "take a day off" or are "sick", then we will count this towards their PTO. Many of them may work 40 hours one week and 45-50 hours another week. As long as they are getting their job done (which is how exempts are paid), then I feel tracking their time unnecessarily and making them take a PTO day when they have already worked in excess of 50 hours a week is not the right thing to do.