DOL’s guidance on winter workplace closings
February 10, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: FLSA, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Overtime
How do companies pay salaried, exempt employees when snowstorms force them to shut down operations?
To remain exempt, employees must be paid on a “salary basis” — they get the same amount of money every week, in most cases, no matter how many hours they work.
You can deduct from workers’ salaries in whole-day increments when an employee chooses to be absent for personal reasons. So if your office is open, but an employee can’t make it due to the weather, you can deduct from his PTO bank or from his weekly salary.
But what about when the weather’s so bad, you shut down the office for a day or longer?
If it’s anything less than a week, you have to pay exempt employees their full salaries, according to an Opinion Letter from the Department of Labor.
You still have the option of making employees use vacation time to cover the work they’re missing. But when employees have no accrued PTO, they’re still owed a full week’s salary.
Half days
You can also deduct PTO when an employee misses a partial day — by choice or because of a workplace closing.
But again — even when an employee takes a half-day by choice, you can only deduct from his salary in full-day increments. So even if he has no PTO, he still gets paid for the whole day if he does any work at all.
Tags: Department of Labor, exempt, snow, weather
February 11th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
What about part time employees and employees picking up overtime shifts? Is there a requirement that employers pay for a shift if it isn’t worked due to a weather shut down?
February 12th, 2009 at 11:25 am
My understanding is in Illinois for exempt employees they had to work some part of the day to get paid for the day. Not some part of the week to get paid for the whole week (unless of course you work for the former Gov. Blogo or the city of Chicago).
We addressed this in our handbook. If you are unable to come to work because of the weather you can use a vacation day. If they have no vacation days left then it is unpaid.
February 12th, 2009 at 11:36 am
We pay exempt employees for snow days. I also don’t expect an exempt employee to use two hours of PTO for a dentst appointment. What is the point of being exempt if you are treated like you’re hourly. Exempt employees get paid to do a job, not punch in at a certain time. Our exempt employees know that there are times that they must work long hours. A paid snow day is the pay-off for the other times they worked at night or on Saturday.
February 13th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
What do different companies do for non-exempts when the workplace is closed for inclement weather?
April 8th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
This may be a silly question, but in theory… One of my exempt employees has PTO saved up, but another one doesn’t. We had to close our office for a week because of weather conditions. According to the article we “have the option of making” an employee use PTO to cover for the missed days, but if they don’t have enough saved up they are still owed for the week. So one of them would have to use PTO, but they would both get paid anyway? That doesn’t seem fair, am I missing something?
May 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am
When the exempt employee does not work for an entire week and does not have any paid time off available, then you may give them the week off with no pay. If they work any part of the week, you must pay for the full week.