Salaried employee question

D

DallasCMD

25+ Posts
I am a salaried employee. Normally I work 5 days a week, Mon-Fri. This next week I have been asked to come in for 4-5 hours on Sunday to complete work that won't get done next week because our office is closed on Thursday and Friday. Our holiday pay comes out of our PTO. My boss is telling me that if I work 5 hours on Sunday then I will only need to use 8 hours of PTO for Thursday and 3 hours for Friday. I say BS. If I come in on Sunday and am there for 5 hours, that is a day worked and I only need to take 8 hours of PTO for Thursday. Is there a law that states what a "day" is for a salaried employee?
 
PTO= "Paid Time OFF"

If you are working, you are not off of work.

Texas Payday laws require you be paid overtime, even if salaried, for hours in excess of 40/week - unless you are in a managerial/supervisory position.

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So technically, you can work on Thanksgiving Day and not take PTO? Your employer seems to have a pretty screwy PTO system. This isn't a major company I take it?
 
I am a little confused by some of the responses, so let me make my question a little more clear.

I do not like the "having it both ways" exhibited by my employer. They want me to use my PTO (which includes both holidays/vacation/sick leave all bundled together) on an hourly basis but pay me on a salary basis. There have been times that I have worked 9-10 hour days, but not been payed for the extra hours. Why when I am short a couple of hours in a day (Sunday) penalize my PTO because I didn't work the full 8 hours? Albeit, it has been a while since I have worked more than the 8 hours due to a slowdown in business or I would just claim comp time.

I just thought there was a "rule" that states if I am there for x amount of hours as a salaried employee then that counts as me being there for the full day (8 hours). Some days will be short, some long, but as a salaried employee it all evens out (supposedly). And that when I use a "PTO" day (8 hours), it is for when I have a scheduled day off, not for piddly 2 hours here, 3 hours there.

I hope that is more clear and no, it is not a major company.
 
If I were your manager in this economy, I would dare you to not show up or challenge PTO policies.

It sucks, but sometimes you have to suck it up and play by their rules or risk finding another position.

I am looking for reasons/cause to lay off some of my employees. Literally crawling expense reports and things of that nature so I can find good reasons to let poor performers go to meet headcount requirements by EoY.
 
I can appreciate that side of things GB. Yes, these are terrible times for a lot of people. That thought had not crossed my mind. I do not need the security as my line of work is specialized and in demand. That is until we know what Obama is going to do with health care reform. Maybe I am making too much out of nothing, I am just having a hard time with the principal of it. All economy / power hungry boss issues aside, do you see it as a double standard?
 
Are you exempt (from overtime and minimum wage laws) or nonexempt? My limited understanding is that if you are exempt, then a "day" is a day in which you showed up at all, no matter if you worked one hour or ten. I had a conversation with a payroll manager, and I asked this question: "if an exempt employee works less than 8 hours in a day, can the employer dock his pay (i.e. subtract wages from his paycheck)", and the answer was a clear "no". So I think your manager is full of it. For an exempt employee, a day at work is a day at work. If you work on Sunday for 5 hours, that is a day of work.
 
Is it really worth pissing the boss off over? It sucks and I would be pissed as well. But is worth rocking the boat over 5 hours of time off pay?
 
If it's that specialized and in demand of work, why not find a better environment? Who's easier to replace, you or your boss? Who's neck is on the line if the project isn't completed on time, yours or your boss's?

It certainly sounds like you are getting hosed on this deal. The question is, are you going to accept it as "work is work," or "**** him there are better places for my talents."
 
Never been paid overtime for working 40+ hours in my salaried career, never heard of anyone receiving it either.

PTO at my company is similar and I like it. You accrue some set number of hours/days of PTO throughout the year depending on how long you've worked there for. There are a set number of company holidays.

Pay periods are semi-monthly. If you take a day off or just a few hours off then you use your PTO. If I work 100 hours in an 80 hour pay period and don't take any days off I lose any extra time.

If I work 100 hours in an 80 hour pay period but decide to take a day off during that pay period, then I don't need to use any PTO because I've already met the quota. I use this all the time to avoid using PTO which I save for extended periods of time off (vacations). Even then if I schedule the vacation across two pay periods I can make up a lot of the time. This leads to me working many hours but being able to take off 5+ weeks a year on just 15 days PTO a year.

Bonuses for me are largely determined by workload and billable time anyhow, so working longer more billable hours = more $$$.
 
I received some overtime pay as a salaried employee in the very beginning of my career, we called it chinese OT because it was only like 20 bucks or something like that TOTAL. Now i am too far along to be lumped in to that category, some companies condone switching folks to salary to take advantage of it using someone for the same number of hours thus avoiding the OT pay for an hourly person doing this. However, companies with this kind of mentality are most likely doing a lot of things wrong and the company probably isn't as strong because of it.
On the flip side, i still work for the same company that paid the chinese OT, the company has always stressed doing the right thing, spending time with your family so on and so forth but one manager can impact that by not abiding by this as it isn't a policy just the overall practice.
Saying all this, if the behavior you describe is prevalent in your company than I would look to move on, however, if you feel it is your manager and the company overall appears strong and seems to follow strong business models than you just need to keep trying, don't give up, you have to outlast a poor manager. I've had to outlive many of them that finally got run off when they were eventually figured out by their superiors. Good luck, it is a tough environment right now.
 
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