Exempt question

[waverly]

I am paid on salary rather than hourly.  We have no stated policy of when to take PTO for partial days. Basically I had lots of PTO so whenever I was out of the office for a couple of hours I would use it on my timecard, and I was never told not to.  


However, we are going to less vacation rollover, so I am wondering if I should use less.  I know a lot of salary people who work partial days don't put PTO on their timecard for the rest of the day. For example their company policy is something like if they work 5 hours a day then that is counted as a full day if they leave early.  Obviously this is not abusing it and not doing it every day and not on a regular basis.  For example, I used sick time for DS's PT and OT last year since they were regular appointments, and the handbook says I can use sick time for kids appointments.  How does it work for your companies?    


I don't want to bring it up because we have no HR which means it would go to the director who is not great at HR and be sent back to me and other department heads in a committee format and involve a re-write of the handbook.  And while that is great,  we have done almost nothing but HR issues and re-writing the handbook to the point that staff is so tired of hearing about HR stuff.  Some of it is new HR laws and enforcing old HR laws, so nothing to do with our specific company, but we have to enforce them to be legal.  So since it is gray area in the handbook then we get to do our own thing unless directed differently, and I don't think he manages my time card that closely to say one way or another unless flagrant abuse which I wouldn't do anyway.  And none of us have experience with HR, so unless we call our HR lawyer it's like the blind leading the blind over here.  

[katrine05]

We can take 3 hrs for appointments or leaving early for whatever reason without dipping into PTO.

[k3am]

We have no formal policy. If I work any hours, I don't mark it as sick or vacation.

At my prior job, that was instruction from my DM when I was constantly having to take time for DD and burning through PTO - he said I should have never been submitting it as PTO if I worked even an hour. Not sure how HR would have felt about it?

[mae0111]

Oct 3, 2018 14:26:09 GMT -5 k3am said:

We have no formal policy. If I work any hours, I don't mark it as sick or vacation.


This. I used the “it all evens out” theory. I figured I was working way more than the 40 hours I was paid for on a regular basis, so if I worked, I didn’t count it toward PTO.

[2chatter]

I use sick time for appointments - I had a hard stop and couldn’t work late yesterday so only worked 7 hours. I used an hour of sick time.

In the same org my previous boss had a kind of - one appointment a week and don’t record it informal policy. But we tracked it as “misc” on our time tracking (we used to track in 15 minute increments).

So I would say to just ask your boss how they want you to use and track time for appointments and early afternoons, etc.

I miss the days of being told “hey, it’s 1:00 why don’t you pick up the kids from school?” Or only happened a couple times a year but it was wonderful.

[waverly]

2chatter, I don't think he knows or has ever thought about it. He just wants me to put 7.5 hours in the sheet every day.

[katespade]

Check your state labor laws for exempt employees. That's what our PTO usage policy is based on.

[twinmomma]

Ours is flexible based on the manager. Mine knows I have a ton of random appointments right now to deal with the divorce, so he told me that as long as I'm willing to work in the evenings to make up for it and it doesn't impact my day to day work, don't bother using PTO. But that's not a standard policy and it's more for hour or two chunks of time, not days.

[waverly]

twinmomma , This would only be for an hour or two as well. I am not sure if it is covered under our state law, but I will double check katespade .  ETA- I don't see anything.  I double checked the handbook, and I don't see anything in there either.  The director did say after multiple attempts at clarification that if an exempt person is working a Sunday which is 5.5 hours then I can take a full day off 7.5 hours to compensate, so based on that maybe anything under the 2 hour window. 


I had been taking PTO for 8 years by the time he mentioned that one, was pressured to decide, so yeah....HR is not his forte.  

[sweetptater]

Our PTO can be taken in 2 hour increments and is used for any time off, including sick time. That being said, a perk of being exempt is not having to track every minute so it's not a big deal to leave early once in a while.

[akafred]

If it is close to 1/2 day I take 1/2 day vacation. We can’t use vacation in less than 4 hour increments. So I try to get dr appts early in the day, at the end of the day, or at lunch. If I have a day with lots of appts I would take a half day and take care of them and use vacation. But I don’t have to.

[2chatter]

We do not get to count time worked on the weekend against any work day, which has vastly decreased my weekend work.

I am supposed to ask if I want to flex with evening hours, but I sometimes don’t. That’s where I have an “everything evens out” attitude. If I work 9.5 hours on Monday and know I will work 6:30-3:30 Tuesday with 1.5 hours OOO but thirty minutes of that was on a call, and I know I have to finish a deck after the kids go to bed, I don’t ask. In my head I already have a “credit” of 1.5 hours AND will end up working more than 8 hours each day. I pretty much only ask for the flex if it’s more than an hour needed at night OR I will be gone 3-4 hours in the middle of the day.

I really wish I could work 8 hours between 6am and 10pm and not have to worry about it too much - I would be in 6:30-2:30 most days and back for part of every evening. But alas, that’s not my world.

[waverly]

The building is open to the public 7 days a week, and we require staffing at public desks so on days that I am scheduled on the weekend, I have to be here and I have to work it otherwise the place can't be open and we aren't allowed to close unless severe weather.

I try to do the everything works out, and with large amounts of time I can. But figuring out what checking my e-mail for 5 minutes here or there is and adding that up is a bit of a nightmare. We don't formally ask for flex or have a formal flex program.

About a year ago he put everyone on hourly except department heads, so we are special creatures I guess.

[2chatter]

I’m beyond punitive with the “everything works out,” generally. I’ll subtract things like getting a cup of coffee but I won’t add answering a work call at 6:00 and walking someone through something instead of chatting at soccer practice. I’ve really tried to stop counting either of those things - against work time or for work time - in an effort to make myself less insane. Having to be at a desk specific hours would make all of this easier and harder. I’m still dying to know what you do waverly.

[waverly]

I know I have been so mysterious 2chatter . Fine I'll tell you that I work in a public library. Then maybe delete later in case my boss decides to google random stuff one day and you know because I am a well known public figure- ha not really.  

[2chatter]

waverly - that has always been my guess!!! To the point I have tried to be more sympathetic to our libraries being closed on holidays (the only days I have tons of time to enjoy them) because it would suck to have to work on, say, Fourth of July, in the surely mostly deserted library.

[waverly]

2chatter, I know- it's been pretty obvious for a while now. Thank you for your sympathy and support. Public libraries rock!

[sdlaura]

If I come into the office, I come and go at will without submitting PTO requests. I only put in a vacation or personal day if I'm not in the office at all.

[mommyatty]

We have a 4 hr increments for taking leave rule. We used to also have a rule that if you took 2 hrs or less, it didn’t count. That dropped out of our handbook, so my reading now is if it’s less than 4 hrs, I don’t take any leave. And I definitely make it up. No question my employer gets way more than their 40-45 hrs a week!

[mustardseed2007]

I love libraries! What a neat job!

We have a very "helpful" admin who always asks if my time away from the office should be counted as sick or vacation or did I take work calls/do work. So we keep it pretty much down to the hour for me. My boss on the other hand...I'm preeetty sure he goes home and takes a nap at 3pm. But then again the owners call him at 8pm lots of times so I shouldn't be too jealous.

And also if I'm at my desk in my office, definitely I count it as work time.

[ECB]

At my old job, private sector, we didn't fill out time cards or anything like that.  If we needed to take an hour or two here or there - we didn't have to take time for it.  The basic expectation that as an exempt employee, you work until the job gets done - so if you need to take a little time, it's probably being made up for somewhere.

Where I'm at now- public university - we fill out time cards and we're supposed to take time for any time that we leave.  But we also get a TON of leave, much more than I got in private.  So - there's a balance there. 

[covergirl82]

I'm exempt. For appointments and such, I do not use PTO. If I were to use PTO for a partial day off, our policy is that we have to use 4 hours. My department leaders are pretty flexible with accommodating life events that take us out of the office for a few hours (and me and my coworkers don't abuse this flexibility), so I really only use PTO when I'm out of the office for a full day.

mustardseed2007, our department admin is also very "observant" about when we're not in the office and also asks if she can help us adjust our time records. But she's hourly/non-exempt and doesn't have quite the same flexibility that we who are exempt do.

[xctsclrx]

I fill out a time card, but I don't submit it daily. If I have to take time on one day I have 4 other days to make it up during the week and if it is in the same pay period 9 other days to make it up. We take our PTO in 15 min increments. We also charge in 15 min increments. I try to work 9 hours days in case a kid gets or something. I will then have time in the "bank" to help make up for it.

[mustardseed2007]

covergirl82, same here. It's annoying, but also overall I depend on her so I try to just live with it. Also I get ample sick and vacation for my actual sick and vacation needs.

[polecat8]

My office is a little different since there are only 7 of us here. I'm the only one who can do my job, so I try to be available after my normal work hours just in case something comes up. My work hours are 7-3 and I usually eat at my desk. Since there are other people working until 5, I'll check work emails on my phone and send responses, if needed. After that, I ignore them.
We have a lot of flexibility. If I or the kids have an appointment, I usually work from home to reduce travel time and step out when I need to. I try hard to make up my hours, but it's no big deal if I can't. It all evens out when I have busy times at work and have to stay a little later.
We are pretty laid back here since our parent company is in another state. As long as we are meeting our deadlines, no one really cares what we do.
We do submit time sheets, but it is just so the big bosses can figure out how much time is being devoted to certain projects.

[librarychica]

Oct 4, 2018 8:33:35 GMT -5 xctsclrx said:

I fill out a time card, but I don't submit it daily. If I have to take time on one day I have 4 other days to make it up during the week and if it is in the same pay period 9 other days to make it up. We take our PTO in 15 min increments. We also charge in 15 min increments. I try to work 9 hours days in case a kid gets or something. I will then have time in the "bank" to help make up for it.

We do this too.

[livinitup]

I am exempt and my company is great at telling us that they do not pay for extra hours, not so much about saying ANYTHING about short hours. Extra hours are considered a “gift”?? So, not great for mangaging or moral. We do two things:

- Punch in/out for extra hours, as earned (unpaid)
- Punch in/out for short days (paid, but uneasy)

On any given pay period it balances to 40 hours/week. Hopefully.

This doesn’t work well when we “clock” extra hours for a pay period and work less than the next pay period.

So, we basically punch in/out even if we work past quitting time or don’t work during scheduled time.

So, each week is “40 hours” even if you went over or under. This is not a good system for rule followers. But how we roll.

[divanerd]

I'm one of the HR people on this board I work in healthcare..DOL states that exempt ees must receive a full salary for any week in which they work without regard to number of days or hours worked (we all know you can do 40 hours or 80 hours in a week as exempt)
DOL permits deductions for one or more full day absences for personal or sick..assuming as an employer you had a plan that allowed that...there are like 8 or 10 exceptions

Long answer but check state law because it may have additions