What to Do If Exempt Employee Is Not Working 40 Hours

What to Do If Exempt Employee Is Not Working 40 HoursWhat to Do If Exempt Employee Is Not Working 40 HoursIn an office where company policies state that exempt employees must work a 40-hour work week, an exempt employee is elend working 40 hours. The office manager understands that the company must pay an exempt employee a full salary even if they dont work a full day. How would you address this with the employee? First of all, good job on not just cutting theirpaycheck. So many people dont understand that you cant cut anexempt employees paycheck if they dont put in the full 40 hours. If she is 10 hours short each pay period, that means that shes taken more than 80 hours off. Thats two whole weeks of vacation in 4 months with no docking of her vacation or pay. Shes got the verstndigung im strafverfahren of the century from your organization. Your company is losing out. You hired her to do a job and shes not doing it. While its absolutely true that you shouldnt nickel and dime your ex empt employees on the number of hours they work, they also need to be working reasonable hours. It generally means that you can expect that one week they work 40 hours, the next 45, the following 37. A schedule like this balances out in the end. What you have, instead, is someone who is consistently working 35 hours and thats not what you hired them to do. So, lets fix this. Heres how. Employer Alternatives You can dock their vacation time in whatever increments you want. State law governs vacation and most states pretty much leave it up to the business. You are subject to follow your own employee handbook, so you may need to update your handbook to reflect your practices better. However, it sends a bad message to employees when you dock vacation pay for exempt employees. You want your exempt employees able to leave early once in a while to go to a doctors appointment or attend a parent-teacher conference, without giving up their vacation. Hold a Sit Down Discussion A better solution is to have a sit-down discussion with them. The first question to ask is, why are they leaving early so often? You may find that they are leaving early because they dont have any more work to do and so, why stick around? This is perfectly legitimate. If youre an exempt employee you are paid to do the job and if youre capable of doing 40 hours of work in 35 hours, why stick around staring at the ceiling? If they arent doing everything that is expected of them, however, the question becomes do they know that? You may find that its a problem with communicated expectations. Their knowledge of the requirements fails to line up with your expectations. Frequently, when an employee is new to the job, you dont tell them everything that they should do and you assume that they will figure it out. If this is the case, discuss their responsibilities with them and the problem should solve itself. When theyclearly understand the goals and expectations of their job, the average employee w ill do them. They may have a personal issue that needs a lot of time. Is there a medical problem? Therapy? A child who needs care? They may hope that no one notices and is completely stressed out about it. If thats the case, you can discuss with them a more permanent flexible schedule so as the employer, you know what to expect from them. For instance, allow them to work 10 hours Mondays and Wednesdays, and a half day on Tuesday to take care of their situation and still work 40 hours. With 15 employees, youre subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act(ADA) and a medical (mental or physical) situation may fall under ADA. This requires reasonable accommodations from the business. Exempt Employee May Not Want to Work 40 Hours They may want to work only 35 hours a week. You can say no. Or, you can say, Thats fine, but wellcut your salary to match. It is perfectly legitimate- you calculated their salary based on a 40 hour work week. If shes only going to work 35, a pay cut is in order. They may decide theyd rather work 40 hours and keep the full salary. A whole host of other issues may be going on, but the important issue is that you must make sure that your expectations match hers. Its up to you to tell her that you need a change and then follow through to make sure it happens. And keep in mind, while you cant dock an exempt employees pay, you can fire an exempt employee for not working the required number of hours. Its the last resort, but sometimes you need to fire the employee. Someone who takes advantage of a kind boss isnt a good employee. - - - - - - - - - - - - Suzanne Lucas is a freelance journalist specializing in Human Resources. Suzannes work has been featured on notes publications including Forbes, CBS, Business Insider and Yahoo.