Business closes due to weather, how do you pay?

hrlp · February 2005

When we close due to weather the company policy in the past has been to pay exempt personnel for the whole day and require nonexempt personnel to take vacation time to cover the missed time. I'm looking for other ideas. What are some of your company's policies?? Thanks!

C Wilson · February 2005

We do the same. But I have worked for companies that allow non-exempt personnel to have the option to take and unpaid day if they choose so they can still have the full benefit of their paid vacation.

AnneLa · February 2005

We also do the same. We do not allow the option of an unpaid day.

marc · February 2005

We pay the all the EEs with no charge to any of the leave banks. Fortunately, this occurs very rarely.

mushroomHR · February 2005

We never close due to weather x:'( However, if we have to close because of a power failure which has happened in the past, we let our non-exempt and hourly employees use a vacation or personal day. They can take the day with no pay though if they wish. Exempt employees get paid for the whole day.

Parabeaglex2 · February 2005

If our office is formally closed due to inclement weather, both exempt and nonexempt employees receive the day with pay. Leave banks are not charged.

This has never happened since I've been here.

pork1 · April 2005

We do the same, the employee gets the rest of the day when we have made the call that a dangerous situation is or may develop and sent the crew home. We would rather suffer the the payroll cost verses the loss of life resulting from bad weather. One never knows when a nasty piece of weather is going to come whipping through. Our employees know very little about driving in ice or snow. You bet, we do not want to make the wrong call and have someone get hurt at our expense in the long run. We know about HOT, cold is another story.

PORK

Caroliso · February 2005

If we close the office because of emergency weather conditions we pay both exempt and nonexempt and do not require they use paid time off. This has happened twice in my 12 years here, both were for snow emergencies where the governor declared a state of emergency and asked people to stay off the roads. The last one was several weeks ago when we got that 26 inch snowfall.
Being in Massachusetts we have several occasions each winter where we have a delayed opening due to weather conditions, or send our "core staff" (administratve staff) home early. Likewise, we don't require time to be deducted. If staff choose to stay home on those days, however, they have to use paid time off or unpaid (for non-exempt) if they have no paid time off left.

tpace · February 2005

We pay all employees for weather related or emergency closings. We do not deduct the time from their accrued time off unless it was already a planned day off for the employee. I can only recall our office closing twice for these types of reasons in the 8 years that I have been here.

2445428 · February 2005

We do not deduct vacation or PTO if we have to close due to bad weather.

pork1 · February 2005

Our company pays a minimum 4 hours for any event that is weather related in order to keep the employee off the roads and out of danger or to allow the employee to get home safely before a weather event happens.

If they have worked for 3 hours and we send them home we pay for 4 hours. If they attempt to get to work but are stopped due to weather, we pay the 4 hours minimum which does not count toward O/T during that week. If they made it to work we allow them to get the hours worked, but no less than 4 hours.

PORK

Gillian3 · February 2005

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 02-15-05 AT 11:34AM (CST)[/font][br][br]We don't have experience with shutting down because of the weather, but occasional earthquakes present a problem. Several years ago, after the Northridge earthquake, the local HR group did a survey of who paid what to whom. The vast majority of companies ( a couple of hundred responded to the survey) paid full salary to exempts and "if they happened to work" to non-exempts. The survey sent a huge message - those that need financial help the least get money, those that need it the most don't, and employees notice. To pay exempts, but not non-exempts is a perfectly legal business decision, but a poor one for employee relations. Some sort of compromise is best.

HRLASS · April 2005

We are in the process of formulating a policy for this. Our factors include 1)many of our employees commute from rural areas and when the police close the roads, they can't get to work whether they want to or not and we don't think it's fair to penalize for this, and 2)during the Florida hurricanes I read that if an employer required an employee to show up for work during bad weather and the employee was injured on the premises or en route, the employer could have liability. We also considered that docking pay for non-exempts in a weather condition could make some employees who didn't want to take a vacation day or be docked, would try to come in when they shouldn't. Currently, most supervisors unofficially authorize pay for non-exempts, either if they have to take a full day or come in late. Some employees are also able to work from home.

On 9/11 we shared our building with the FBI and were therefore evacuated. Recently all employees received a refrigerator magnet for home with a phone number to call in case of a major emergency to see if the offices would be closed or who would be required to come to work.

tiles52 · February 2011

Our current policy has been to give both exempt and non-exempt employees leave with pay if the company closes due to inclement weather, and not have it count towards their accrued PTO. However, this most recent ice storm has caused us to re-think this because we actually had to close our offices for three days. Since our current policy allows leave with pay, we have asked our employees to consider volunteering to use PTO, but that would be optional on their part.

We are now looking at revising the policy to state that if our offices/facilities are closed, exempt staff will be required to use accrued PTO. Obviously, since they are exempt, they will still be paid whether or not they have the accrued PTO to use. Those without pay or who choose not to use accrued PTO, will be required to meet their job expectations for that week.

Non-exempt employees would be required to use accrued PTO. The rub is if a non-exempt employee does not have the accrued PTO to use. Some want to give them a day without pay and others want to go ahead and give them the day with pay. I'm not sure if there is anything legally against requiring employees who have accrued PTO to use it, and those who don't would still receive pay for that day, but it doesn't seem right to allow employees who have not used up their PTO to use it for the snow day and others who may have used up their PTO for other reasons to still be paid.

Thoughts?

davids · February 2011

If an employee reports to work and is subsequently sent home, the employee is paid for his/her entire shift. If we close and announce (through local news media) that employees should not report, they have to charge the leave to their leave banks. If they don't have any leave, non-exempts would be docked, exempts would receive pay.

NaeNae55 · February 2011

[QUOTE=tiles52;721654]
We are now looking at revising the policy to state that if our offices/facilities are closed, exempt staff will be required to use accrued PTO. Obviously, since they are exempt, they will still be paid whether or not they have the accrued PTO to use. Those without pay or who choose not to use accrued PTO, will be required to meet their job expectations for that week.

Non-exempt employees would be required to use accrued PTO. The rub is if a non-exempt employee does not have the accrued PTO to use. [B]Some want to give them a day without pay[/B] and others want to go ahead and give them the day with pay. [B]I'm not sure if there is anything legally against requiring employees who have accrued PTO to use it[/B], and those who don't would still receive pay for that day, but it doesn't seem right to allow employees who have not used up their PTO to use it for the snow day and others who may have used up their PTO for other reasons to still be paid.

Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

You should be consistant as far as not having any PTO available goes; what is your current policy? What if an exempt employee runs out of PTO and needs to be off? What do you currently do? What do you do about hourly? I believe you should follow the same policy for weather related absenses.

I have an issue with giving some employees the day with pay because they don't have enough PTO time accrued. The result is rewarding them for not saving time for emergencies and penalizing those who did. I would probably make an exception for extenuating circumstances (someone who has been severly ill, for example), but otherwise I would see it as a disciplinary issue.

As far as I know, as long as your leave policy is in writing and non-discriminatory you can handle it pretty much any way you want to. I know many states have laws regarding payouts at termination, but I haven't heard anything about administration of a leave policy for current employees.

Dutch2 · February 2011

Our policy has been to be open for business if at all possible and if we should be closed exempt empoyees will be paid - non-exempt employees would have to use Vacaiton time in order to be paid for the time the business was closed. However, with this most recent snow storm we closed at 10:00 a.m. one day and were closed all day the next day. Out of the blue our President/CEO decided to pay everyone (including part-time) for the hours they were scheduled to work had we been open for business. Needless to say - this was very much appreciated by everyone. It will be interesting to see what happens next time we close early or for the day - our employees will expect us to do the same again.

kdigangi · February 2011

We have only closed once in our history for weather, and that was this month. We don't have a written policy, but everyone was paid. On most bad days we are open, and employees who don't come in or only work part of the day are charged PTO, exempt and non-exempt alike. I can't imagine paying one group and not the other. It would be very badly received here.

NaeNae55 · February 2011

I recently read that only 4% of companies pay employees regular pay when they are closed due to weather. Most have the employees use PTO time.

What if you have a tornado or something that closes you down for a week or more? Will you still pay then? We have the employees use PTO time so we don't set a precedent we can't get out of. Also, we are owned by a hospital and they are open no matter what.

Our only exception is exempt employees. They [B]never[/B] have to use PTO time for parital days, regardless of the cause.

kdigangi · February 2011

The 4% figure surprises me--maybe it shouldn't. If we did have to close for a lengthy period, the employees would qualify for unemployment, so I expect we wouldn't pay them.

System · February 2011

Susan Kline, one of the attorney editors for Indiana Employment Law Letter wrote an article about pay issues and office closings that gives a good overview of the situation.

[url]http://hrhero.com/hl/articles/2007/02/02/pay-time-off-issues-for-office-closings-due-to-inclement-weather/[/url]

sonny · February 2011

[QUOTE=Dutch2;721658]Our policy has been to be open for business if at all possible and if we should be closed exempt empoyees will be paid - non-exempt employees would have to use Vacaiton time in order to be paid for the time the business was closed. However, with this most recent snow storm we closed at 10:00 a.m. one day and were closed all day the next day. Out of the blue our President/CEO decided to pay everyone (including part-time) for the hours they were scheduled to work had we been open for business. Needless to say - this was very much appreciated by everyone. It will be interesting to see what happens next time we close early or for the day - our employees will expect us to do the same again.[/QUOTE]

That's what happened here. We had been hurricane free for a number of years, had one and were all paid when we closed. . .A couple years later hurricane hell hit and everyone expected to be paid. .Folks now are allowed to use PTO which some won't do b/c they still feel they should be off with pay . . sigh

Business closes due to weather, how do you pay?

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