Another PTO Question... Maryland

[FriendInHim]

If a salaried employee misses a few hours of work and does not have any accrued PTO, can the employer take the PTO time into the negative to be recouped by the employer at a later date?

ie. Employee has personal business to take care of during the day and leaves work for 3.5 hours. Employee currently has no available PTO to use but will accrue 2 hrs per week in future weeks. Can the employer use the future PTO time accrued to make up the 3.5 hour deficit?

I appreciate your help!

[cbg]

They can, in that it is not illegal to do so. However, you can run into problems down the line by allowing an employee to go into a negative balance. Particularly if they leave before the balance has been made up.

[FriendInHim]

I understand that situation, but what else can be done? For example I have a salaried employee who missed a 10 hr work day this past week and only has 6 hours of PTO time. What would be the best way to handle this situation?

PS. Thanks for your help

[Pattymd]

You would do whatever the company policy says. However, it would be legal to have a policy that stated either would not be paid for the entire day, or would be paid for 6 hours only.

[cbg]

Umm, Patty, wouldn't that last suggestion mean that he was not paid for a partial day which was not covered by FMLA?

I see the options as follows:

1.) Require him to take the entire day unpaid
2.) Pay him for the full ten hours but without taking his PTO into negative balance (surely at some point he's worked four hours over his scheduled time if this requires justification)
3.) Pay him the full ten hours but put his PTO into negative balance (not recommended)

If it were me, I would go with option 2 (yes, really).

[FriendInHim]

Option #2 is how the company has been handling the situation but we now have several employees taking advantage of this policy. ie. They continually work less than their "required hours" or come in for 1.5 hours, leave for 5-6 hours and come back to work another 1 hour.

The dedicated employees are starting to get their feathers ruffled...

[CMorgan]

We had that happen a few times. Once HR started to write up offending managers for "abusing" company policy; however, that got everyone's attention and pretty much curtailed that issue.

[cbg]

Nothing says you can't discipline them for abuse of policy. Docking pay is not the only way to discipline someone.

[CMorgan]

I agree, but once you start writing people up for excessive absentism then that tends to get their attention. They either toe the line and follow rules or they get to find employment elsewhere.

[cbg]

I'm agreeing with you, CMorgan...

[FriendInHim]

You guys are great! Thanks for the input!

PS. Care to share the other ways of discipline???

[cbg]

Sure, how much time have you got?

Writeups, as CMorgan suggested.

Assignment to unfavored or unpleasant duties

Requirement to work on weekends/holidays

Mandatory overtime

Paycuts (with proper notice as required, of course!)

Cancellation of promised time off

Rescinding of privileges

Get the idea?

[FriendInHim]

I'm getting the picture...

[Pattymd]

cbg, maybe I didn't state it clearly. What I meant was that, if the employee has taken the full day off for personal reasons, and doesn't have enough to cover all of it, but part of it, they could pay him only the few hours he has PTO for. Since they wouldn't have to pay him at all, that policy would, be ok, in my opinion.

[cbg]

This doesn't happen often, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one. The way I read it, they could give him the entire day unpaid, or they could pay him for the entire day, but they can't pay him for only part of the day.

[Pattymd]

ah, well, at least we're still friends.

[FriendInHim]

Well now...
I'm right back to where I started....confused!
But I must admit that I have learned quite a bit from you!
Thanks for all your help

[ElleMD]

Remember in MD in order to reduce pay you must give one pay periods notice.