Tracking Salaried Employee's Vacation Time?
HR Mouse
53 Posts
We have about 7 employees who are salaried. As of the beginning of this year we started using the Available/Taken feature in our payroll system for all active employees. Can we ask for the salaried employees to turn in completed Vacation Days Request Forms when they get their Vacation time off approved so the Accumulator in payroll can be accurate? Until now they would just verbally ask their manager for the time off & that was it. Certain "higher ups" have voiced concerns that some salaried employees take excessive time off which they consider to be above & beyond their allowed 3 weeks vacation per calendar year & would love for us to keep track of the vacation to stop bad habits. Others (some of which are considered to be offenders) are very resistant to this and feel it's no ones business how much time they take off but their own.
What can we do in HR/Payroll so we can keep excessive vacation time down to the allowed time without compromising their exempt status? I was under the impression that tracking valid vacation time was acceptable whether or not the employee was salaried...........
Comments
Does your company policy address this at all? If you state that you require a request for time off, then your salaried employees would fall under the policy as well. If you don’t currently have this as a policy item, then you can make a addition to cover the proper vacation request rules. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Our company policy states that everyone needs to request vacation time as far in advance as possible and must be approved in advance by their manager. Being a salaried employee does have anything to do with requiring them to fill out a request form.
Yes, our Company Policy states, "All employees are required to formally request Vacation days off by completing a Vacation Request Form and turning it in to their immediate supervisor for approval. All Vacation Request Forms must be approved and signed before being presented to Human Resources for record-keeping and payroll purposes. We will always try to grant employee's Vacation requests for the days of their choice however, we must ensure that we have enough workers to meet our day-to-day needs. This means we may not always be able to grant every request (especially during the busy periods) and appreciate your understanding in this matter."
So I should be able to go to the salaried employee who just took this entire week off (I only found out through word of mouth when I overheard someone in her dept mention she would be out this week) as Vacation and have her fill out a Vacation Request Form without compromising her exempt status? Excellent!!! That's exactly what I want to do. She is one of the "offenders" I had mentioned and one who will argue any tiny, minor change in anything to death.......I'm sure this will be an uphill battle on my end, but if it's company policy, it's company policy. And better yet - she (and all other employee's) just signed off on the newly revised Vacation & Personal Day Policy for the Employee Handbook about 2 weeks ago!
Thank you so much! Any other advise, stories, etc. are still appreciated! As much information I can get to back me up will be great!
In a word, "yes". You can require salaried people to request paid time off in advance. You can require that it be approved and you can declare approval to be a prerogative of the company. The best way to do that is to cover those points in your vacation policy and then ensure that the policy is being enforced. From the payroll side of things, there's no exact way to be sure who is working and who is not without having your salaried EEs clocking in and out or otherwise having someone (reliably) taking attendance. The big problem is that a lot of managers know how salary pay works and they simply fail to report time not worked as a pirq, a sort of bonus that they would not otherwise be able or allowed to give. So, if that's the case, they are working against you in terms of being accountable for the time worked by their subordinates because that would remove a motivational tool that they use (that costs the Company money and probably violates policy).
Because you have the policy in place and the week has already been taken, you may want to report this to employee relations depending on how combative you want to be. Taking the week off without working and without having your PTO bank reduced is theft from the Company. Alternatively, you could look for authorization to simply not pay for the week not worked as it is too late to make the request in advance of the leave. Even if you don't intend to push any hardball tactics to the limit, sometimes it is appropriate to show your teeth but that is for you to decide.
Somewhere in there should be accountability for the manager who allowed the unworked time to be compensated.