Flex time for Exempt

Bullion

Currently, Exempt employees work from 8:00am-5:00pm and then attend a meeting periodically from 7:00pm-9:00pm on the same day. Our organization has allowed employees to flex their hours for that day so the exempt employee will not have to work more than 8 hours.

We want to make a change to this practice and not have flex time available to employees. We want the exempt employee to work their normal day 8:00am-5:00pm and also attend their required meeting from 7:00-9:00.

Are there any laws that would prohibit our organization from making this change?

NaeNae55

Welcome to the forum Bullion!

No. You can work an exempt employee 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for as long as you want to (or they quit or die).

Beware though, you cannot dock these employees if they don't come to the meeting or do manage to take some time off. You will have to handle it as a disciplinary action (not coming to required meetings, etc). I would also avoid any thing that smells of keeping track of their hours.

Is there any reason these meetings can't take place during work? Can you start them at 4:30 or 5:00 and bring in dinner? This might go a long ways towards keeping morale up. The change you are talking about is bound to upset some of your employees, especially if you meet often.

Good luck!

Nae

Dutch2

Yep, what NaeNae55 said.
Also...If this really does upset some of your ee's and no doubt that it will you should review the FLSA requirements for exempt ee's just to make sure that they all really do qualify. If one of them complains to the DOL about loosing their comp/flex time and states they are not being paid for time worked. When the DOL shows up to check it out they will most likely review the exempt/non-exempt status of all your ee's and not just the one that complained.
Personally I have never understood how some exempt ee's get away with working only 40 hours a week.
Good luck...

System

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-21-06 AT 08:03AM (CST)[/font][br][br]Dutch2 makes an excellent point about making sure your exempt employees truly pass the exemption test, because sure as the sun shines, someone will get their pants in a wad and want to involve the govt. That being said, however, I can't understand why some organizations are so damn afraid of making their exempt staff work beyond 40 hours for fear they might get upset. The fact that they are salaried exempt IMPLIES their work may not be contained in a nice neat 40 hour package. Having your staff show up for a meeting after hours periodically is not an unreasonable request as you are apparently attempting to minimize disruption of more "productive" worktime. I say plow ahead, explain your rationale to your staff, ask their cooperation, and if they continue to whine and bitch after the first week, proceed to explain some of the alternatives.......like resigning.

lakeway1

Is a police chief an exempt employee? I see that police officers qualify for OT, but it really doesn't say about a police chief, that I can find.

System

My guess is that the Chief of Police is an exempt employee, falling under the executive exemption. However, government employees are always a different breed, often subject to different laws and standards. But, NORMALLY, someone who is responsible for managing a portion of the business (or department) and manages the work of at least 2 subordinates would qualify for the exemption.