When is it appropriate for an employer to dock a salaried exempt employees time bank?
An exempt employee can only be docked pay if there is a formal policy for paid time off. If you allow sick days or vacation days, they may be deducted. However, if an exempt employee works ANY part of the entire 40 hour work week, in the absence of a formal policy, they must be paid for the whole week. Yes, you read that correctly. If they only work a day, they must be paid for the whole week. Now, in these cases, exempt employees can be desciplined for absenteeism, tardiness, etc. But there should also be a formal policy for that. If you have a formal time-off policy, then you are ok to not pay for time that goes over the vacation/sick/personal allotment. But as a general rule you should not deduct less than a full work day for an exempt employee and definitely never on an hourly basis. Half days are the very least you can deduct without putting the company’s exempt/non-exempt status in jeopardy. Otherwise you could have the DOL telling you to pay everyone back overtime because you tr
