Switch OT hours for sick/personal hours?
Caroliso
352 Posts
Our Finance Manager wonders why we can't have as a part of our OT policy that in a week where someone takes paid time off (say sick time) that instead of declaring OT hours as additional hours worked, they simply replace their sick hours with worked hours. Our policy is that OT is time and a half after 40 hours worked.
So the example would be a NE who works 32 hours, is out one day (8 hours) due to illness, and works 8 hours of OT in the same week. Our Finance Manager would have them reporting 40 hours worked instead of 8 hours sick, 32 regular hours, and 8 hours OT. There is no difference in pay rate (paid at straight time either way under our policy) but of course in one example the pay is for 40 hours and in another for 48 hours. She argues that the employee isn't disadvantaged, since in the example where she gets fewer hours she is also not charging her sick time bank, so she still has that time available to her.
This seems ill advised, but I'm not sure it's illegal. I know comp time (trading OT for paid time off) is not allowed in the regs, but this is sort of the reverse (time off for OT hours when they are paid at straight time).
Thoughts?
Thanks.
So the example would be a NE who works 32 hours, is out one day (8 hours) due to illness, and works 8 hours of OT in the same week. Our Finance Manager would have them reporting 40 hours worked instead of 8 hours sick, 32 regular hours, and 8 hours OT. There is no difference in pay rate (paid at straight time either way under our policy) but of course in one example the pay is for 40 hours and in another for 48 hours. She argues that the employee isn't disadvantaged, since in the example where she gets fewer hours she is also not charging her sick time bank, so she still has that time available to her.
This seems ill advised, but I'm not sure it's illegal. I know comp time (trading OT for paid time off) is not allowed in the regs, but this is sort of the reverse (time off for OT hours when they are paid at straight time).
Thoughts?
Thanks.
Comments
>is time and a half after 40 hours worked.
That is still the law, after reading your posted words, I get the feeling that you are including the sick time or PTO time as "working hours", which they are not. In any work week, one can make up time lossed to sick ness or PTO when there is work available in that same work week. You can not go over into the next work week and make up time lossed in the previous week.
If I mis-understood please let me know.
PORK
"I get the feeling that you are including the sick time or PTO time as "working hours", which they are not."
Actually as long as the Employer has the written policy about overtime, you can count hours as follows:
1. Only ACTUAL hours physically WORKED count towards your 40 - does NOT include sick leave, vacation or holiday towards 40.
2. All hours count as worked...Regular ACTUAL hours worked, sick leave, holiday, vacation, etc.
Sounds to me that your company counts all hours as time worked toward the 40 hour week. If this is true, then you would need to pay the 8 hours at the overtime rate. BUT if you don't include anything other than ACTUAL hours worked, then the 8 hours would be paid at straight time.
Since we use the "Actual hours physically Worked" when computing overtime, we would let the employee use the 8 hours "OT" to replace their 8 hours "sick" as long as it is in the same workweek. No charge to sick leave, pay 40 reg. hours.
>policy about overtime, you can count hours as
>follows:
>
>1. Only ACTUAL hours physically WORKED count
>towards your 40 - does NOT include sick leave,
>vacation or holiday towards 40.
>
Yes, this is what we do.
>Since we use the "Actual hours physically
>Worked" when computing overtime, we would let
>the employee use the 8 hours "OT" to replace
>their 8 hours "sick" as long as it is in the
>same workweek. No charge to sick leave, pay 40
>reg. hours.
Okay, that's clear, and helpful. But, to be clear about my final question, if your employee's timesheet reports the 8 hours as sick, and 8 hours extra time (for a total of 48 hours worked and non-worked time on the timesheet) would you in processing payroll "convert" the 8 hours sick to 8 hours worked time and pay a total of 40 hours?
>>is time and a half after 40 hours worked.
>
>That is still the law, after reading your posted
>words, I get the feeling that you are including
>the sick time or PTO time as "working hours",
>which they are not. In any work week, one can
>make up time lossed to sick ness or PTO when
>there is work available in that same work week.
>You can not go over into the next work week and
>make up time lossed in the previous week.
>
>If I mis-understood please let me know.
>
>PORK
No, I didn't count sick time as worked time. That's why in my example, when the person charged 48 hours in a week, all of it was paid as straight time.
I also didn't say anything about going over into a new week. My example was about one week.
I think you've answered some of my question though. I guess a question remains whether we can effect the change once a timesheet is already submitted, not if the employee can decide of her own accord to not put down sick time since they worked 8 extra hours. The former seems improper, the latter seems okay.
Carol
I concur that it seems somewhat improper to change an employee's timesheet after submittal, however it depends on your policy (which I gather is somewhat unclear - not unlike many of my policies!). Is it feasible for you to talk to an employee about what they want to do? Or, write a policy that says if time is made up during a week, sick/vacation/whatever will not be paid out. Then you'd be OK to alter the sheet as appropriate.
On a side note, we have a policy where, if an employee puts in for four vacation hours but works later than they expected that day, we'll only pay 3.5 or whatever.
>I concur that it seems somewhat improper to
>change an employee's timesheet after submittal,
>however it depends on your policy (which I
>gather is somewhat unclear - not unlike many of
>my policies!). Is it feasible for you to talk
>to an employee about what they want to do? Or,
>write a policy that says if time is made up
>during a week, sick/vacation/whatever will not
>be paid out. Then you'd be OK to alter the
>sheet as appropriate.
>
Thanks, Cali, that gives me some leeway. Yes, we do try to talk to employees beforehand in any event, so it would be easy to take care of most of this before time sheet submission. What you offer (clarify in policy) is a good compromise.
Our employees in similar situations have always wanted the extra money, and most wouldn't consider swapping OT hours for accrued Sick leave hours. If you write a policy, I'd make it an option to swap hours, not a requirement.
We have a call center and need people here to answer the phones during certain hours along with a couple other areas that have a direct relationship to the number of customer orders that day.
What you've outlined, could be hard for a manager to administer when scheduling time off and coverage. If an individual is able to "make up their time" during the week and works one less day, they still have more vacation or sick time to use up during the year.