Expert: Vanessa D. Powell, CPA - 10/28/2009

Question
Most of the hourly employees in my organization work flexible work schedules because their facilities are open 24/7. Full-time employees accrue sick leave at a rate of 1 day per month of work. If an employee requests sick leave for 8 hours early in the week and then is asked to work 8 hours on a day that they would be off later in the week; should they be paid sick leave since they actually worked a full 40-hour week?

Answer
Not generally, no.  Although some companies I've worked with will allow the employee to be paid the 8 hours as well (but not overtime) if they want it.  But most employees would rather save the sick time for an instance when they won't be able to make it up.  For instance, my husband works for a company that has an arm that works 24/7, and he almost always has a large amount of sick time accrued, since he almost always has some opportunity to make it up (and usually the person who covered for them will need the time off later in the weeks so as not to incur overtime.)  Then the company pays out all sick time at the end of the year.

Does that make sense?  If the company allows it, and the employee wants it, offer them the additional 8 hours of sick time in their check, otherwise, leave the sick time alone and pay them as usual.

Best of luck!