“What are my options when a salaried employee takes an hour or two off? I’ve heard you must pay for the whole day unless they take a whole day off.”
My HR survival tip
I’m breaking this question into two parts so each one stays focused on one aspect of this question. This post will specifically cover the paycheck concepts and next week’s will discuss peripheral issues.
Salaried (exempt) employees, by law, are due a complete week’s wages if they work that week. However, people are often confused by what this means.
Let me first mention you do not owe for a full week if the employee was hired or terminates mid-week. That partial week can be prorated.
You do have options if you have sick leave, vacation, or PTO (Paid Time Off) plans in place because you are allowed to deduct for time off from any accrued balance the salaried employee has.
Reductions from sick leave balances can only be taken for medically-related reasons, such as doctor appointments, personal illness, or kin care (caring for a family member, etc.). Any other type of personal time off is taken from vacation balances. If you use PTO instead of separate sick leave and vacation plans, you can deduct both sick and personal time from the PTO balance.
A court decision (and the California Supreme Court has recently agreed) made it clear you are allowed to deduct any time off from a salaried employee’s sick leave, vacation, or PTO balances. Be careful here, though. The salaried employee must have time off balances to use!
The critical point is you are merely reducing the time off balances, NOT the paycheck. The employee must still receive a full paycheck but will now have fewer hours available for future sick or vacation purposes.
My next post will discuss comp time and what to do if the employees doesn’t have any sick or vacation time available.
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