As an employer, I am having a problem with an employee. This employee is an exempt employee who was given a benefit of 2 weeks vacation at the beginning of the year. The employee has missed 9 days of work this year, 4 of which being in the last two months. We are not covered under FMLA, as we only have 20 employees. Being a small company, this is causing some problems. I have talked to the employee verbally in the past about missing time and I will be writing the employee up for this past time. The employee has put in a request for 4 days vacation for the up coming holidays. I know that it may not be fair, but I would like to deny those vacation days, and any other vacation days for the rest of the year citing the 9 missed days over the year.. would I be out of bounds legally to do this?

Also. We want to institute a personal day/vacation plan so that I would give the employee 2 personal days a year, anything over that and it would eat into their vacation. Is this legal as well?

It is perfectly legal to deny a vacation request, be it an exempt employee or a nonexempt. And, honestly, I'm tending to agree with you.

And yes, your second option is legal, too. Under the law, you don't have to provide ANY paid time off.

You did mention that you aren't subject to FMLA, so that implies the employee is missing time for sickness or accident? Do you have a sick pay policy? Did you pay him for the full days he missed?

we have been paying the employee for the sick time missed. We have yet to ask for a doctor's excuse as it is 1 or 2 days here and there.... mostly on Friday and Monday. My own personal policy is, I accept "I'm sick" as an excuse and I will not delve into the employee's personal life. But if the employee really needs the help and compassion, I leave this up to them to come and talk to me about it.

To take my question a little further, by denying those 4 days, the employee will probably not have the opportunity to take those days before the end of the year... would I still be inbounds?

I appreciate the help, I read this board all of the time... just have never posted, I do appreciate the insight...

Sure, I don't see any legal issue here at all. Is your vacation policy such that the employees lose vacation if they don't take it by the end of the year?

Our policy does not state that you lose vacation time when calling off. I am probably going to honor the days off, but change the policy for the upcoming year so that is the case. I assume that I can do something like this:

example:
2 weeks vacation
3 personal days
Once you eat through your personal days, you will begin to lose vacation time. Once the vacation time is gone, you will not be paid for the days in which you call off.

This would be the policy for the exempt, salary employees. What do you think?

Works for me. ;)

Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.