AboutBrian Phillips Expertise Can answer questions in areas of wage and hour, OT, Fair labor standards, FMLA, COBRA, Recruiting, Interviewing techniques, employee manuals, HRIS rollout, Employee Leasing or Staffing company cost analysis, bacon, eggs, and more. Essentially a well rounded HR generalist who operates Harvis, Inc., a human resource consulting and service business based in Northeastern Pennsylvania "NEPA". www.harvis.org
Experience As owner and chief consultant at Harvis, Inc., we provide Human Resource services and structure to small businesses without their own HR department. We make workplaces better by becoming that 1/2 person they need to help handle HR responsibilities on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
Formerly responsible for all Human Resource activity for a staffing company with 2,500 annual employees as well as an employee leasing / PEO business with 1,500 annual employees. Designed and implemented the HR structure to support hundreds of clients in excess of $ 500 million in payroll volume over career in Human Resources.
Organizations * Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry - current member and former co-chairperson for the HR Taskforce;
* Tri-County Personnel Association (oldest continuous operating "HR" association in the nation (we think));
* Back Mountain Business Association - Dallas PA
* Business Association of the Greater Shickshinny Area - Shickshinny PA
Publications Northeast PA Business Journal - interviewed for various articles
HR Insights - Chamber of Commerce HR publication
Education/Credentials Bloomsburg State University - 1993 BS Marketing located in Bloomsburg Pennsylvania and Luzerne County Community College - 1991 Business Administration located in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania
Awards and Honors * Better than average - 20/10 vision
* Bestowed with an occasional "Thank You" from clients and their employees.
Question Hi We are a small business employing 24 people. We have 5 upper management staff who are salary. The rest work in the shop and are paid hourly. Our work week consists of four, ten-hour days. One of the managers recently asked me when she uses vacation if she should be using 8 hours for the day or 10 hours for the day. She explained to me when she was hired she was told to work roughly 32-36 hours per week. This particular employee has 250 hours of vacation available...if she uses it in 8 hour days she has 31.25 days to use but if she uses it in 10 hour days she has only 25 days to use...we are wondering how to handle the situation as we don't really have a policy set for salary employee vacation. Can you give us any ideas ...I was thinking of having her use 9 hours/vacation day since she is here four days a week and works roughly 36 hours (sometimes more sometimes less.) We accrue vacation monthly...she gets 40 hours every 3 months which accues in our payroll program at 13.33 hours / month. Thanks in advance,
Answer Michelle,
I don't know what state you are in, so I will only elaborate on the information you provided. Different states have different requirements toward PTO and vacation and whether the employer must include it as income or whether it can be forfeited under certain conditions- like quitting without notice.
You have no policy you said, so the first thing to do is think about how a policy can be put into place to achieve the goals you want. Add this to your policy manual ASAP. If you don't have a policy manual, you should write one ASAP or hire a company to do it for you. Don't rely on templates since you still need to know what to add and how to build it to get the best results and least opportunity for gray areas that can be legal issues. Plus a template is just that- it really isn't customized to your business.
I am unclear if some or all employees are 10 hour days for 4 days a week. Are any employees 5 days a week and 8 hours a day- ? If you have both 8 and 10 hour / 4 and 5 day a week employees, then you need two policies.
I will assume all your employees across the board are 10 hour days, working 4 days a week. So, 1 day is 10 hours. Deduct Vacation as10 hours, not 9. You would pay the salary person the same (salary) "dollar amount", except the makeup of the pay would be 30 hours regular and 10 hours vacation. This vacation pay type should be added as a pay code so you can run reports later to see who used how much vacation and when they used it during what pay cycle.
Also, you should consider what "YEAR" to base the vacation on... is it a calendar year, fiscal year- like July 1 to June 30 or is it based on their own hire date like April 13 to April 12 each year ? Do you allow rollover of unused vacation, do you pay out unused at the end of the year, and more.
So, you also mentioned the salary manager and that he/she works 32 to 36 hours a week. ANY Manager or employee can be paid a salary. Companies get into trouble when they make managers "overtime exempt" and fail to pay overtime that causes trouble. They believe if someone is a manager, then there is no way they are entitled to overtime- WRONG. So, just because you declare someone to be "salary", be sure they are also entitled to the exemption from overtime, otherwise you must pay a special overtime called salary half time. Check the Fair Labor Standards Act for information on whether the managers you have are or are not also entitled to Overtime- with their salary. Whoever runs your payroll should know about this too.
If they are exempt from OT, then they can work 30 or 50 hours a week and get the same pay as they are overtime exempt. You should also have all employees- ALL employees fill out a timecard of sorts and identify what is regular time, vacation time and sick time, etc..
If you like, follow up to this question and my response with more detail. Otherwise good luck.
