Salary question

[Prettywave]

What is the name of your state? Ohio

I am a retail manager who is paid by salary. However, I am confused about this matter. I have been with my company for 3 1/2 years, and I am scheduled 45 hours per week. I am required to work the 45 hours a week, but we enter our time as only 40 hours per week for the payroll. And, my paystub only reads for 40 hours AND it goes by my hourly rate. If I work less than 40 and have used all of my vacation, personal or sick time, I am docked those hours. However, my pay does not change if I work the required 45 and the paystub only reads 40. Is this normal? Thank you in advance.

 

[Beth3]

The 40 hours thing is undoubtedly just a payroll software "default" and irrelevant.

Two questions:

1. When you work more than 45 hours, do you receive OT?
2. If you miss a partial day due to illness or personal business, is your pay docked?

 

[Prettywave]

I am not paid overtime if I work more than 45 hours. If all benefit time is used up, then I will be docked those hours. Thank you.

 

[cbg]

Are you docked for PARTIAL days or FULL days? It makes a very big difference.

 

[Prettywave]

It would be as many hours missed. I guess that this all sounds normal to me now. However, it just does not make sense to me to be considered an hourly worker if I am on a salary. Thank you all anyway.

 

[cbg]

Whoa, hold on. No one said this was normal. That's why we were asking the questions.

Here's how it works. Either you are exempt or non-exempt under the law. If you are a manager it is VERY likely that you qualify as exempt, so we'll assume that is the case.

As an exempt employee, you MUST be paid your full salary for every week that you work AT ALL, with the following exceptions:

1.) If it is the first or last week of employment, they only need to pay you for the days you actually work.

2.) If you are on FMLA, they only need to pay you for the TIME you actually work. (In this case, and in this case ONLY, they can dock your salary in partial day increments.)

3.) If you take a full day off, for personal reasons, and there is no vacation or personal time they can apply to it (or if the time was not approved), they can dock you for the day you did not work.

4.) If the company offers a bona fide policy of sick days, with a reasonable number of days (not defined in the law but generally interpreted as at least 5); you have used up all the time and then call in sick again, they can dock you for the day you are out sick, but ONLY after you have exhausted all the sick time available to you.

5.) If you have been suspended for a major safety violation (NO other reason is acceptable) it can be an unpaid suspension.

They may NOT legally dock your pay for partial days absences UNLESS you are on intermittant FMLA. Barring the FMLA exception, if you work at ALL during the day, they have to pay you for the full day. Even if you come in, work ten minutes, and go home sick, they have to pay you for the whole day. They can dock your bank of sick time (if such a thing exists) but in terms of dollars you MUST receive the entire day's pay one way or the other. (They can, however, discipline you in other ways if they feel you are abusing the rules.)

However, the flip side to this is that you have no legal entitlement to overtime whatsoever. There are NO conditions, as an exempt employee, where they are REQUIRED to pay you overtime. They may do so if they choose, but they have no legal obligation whatsoever to do so.

I wouldn't worry too much about the hours showing on the paycheck. I'd be willing to bet money that this is a default on the payroll software and has no relationship to anything the company is doing. However, if you are being docked DOLLARS (they can legally dock time) for partial days absences, you can file a complaint with the Ohio Department of Labor.