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Can an Employer Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Their Busy Season

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  • 05-08-2017, 11:49 AM
    Motor
    Can an Employer Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Their Busy Season
    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Minnesota

    I apologize if this question has already been answered, I may have missed it. Our small business has 10 employees, including part time workers and the two owners. Besides the owners and myself, all employees are hourly. Employees accrue a certain amount of PTO that can be used for any reason. We also have a specified amount of unpaid time off that they are allowed to use before any disciplinary action is taken. Again, the unpaid time off can be used for any purpose. In either case any time off must use either the PTO or the unpaid time off (UTO) unless a special exception is granted, which happens periodically for various reasons. This is all clearly written in the PTO & UTO policy that is given to them when hired or any time changes are made.

    The question I have is whether or not it is legal to require non-exempt employees to make up missed hours by either coming in early, staying late, or working the Saturday shift. During slow periods missing time isn’t a huge issue, however in our busy seasons it becomes a massive problem to unexpectedly lose that 8 hours of production time. We are a fairly seasonal business, spring and late fall are usually incredibly busy periods where our lead time doubles or triples, sometimes within a couple of days. You can see where unexpected absences can cause issues within those times. Obviously we aren't out to cause problems for our employees, but we need to meet our production goals too.

    Thank you for your help.
  • 05-08-2017, 12:16 PM
    hr for me
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    Yes, Unless there is a collective bargaining agreement/union in place, the employer has the right to schedule employees for any work hours (barring any industry or state safety standards) -- you just have to pay them for time worked and any overtime due. Even if they have PTO/UTO accrued, you as the employer can still refuse to allow them to take that time off whenever they want to. You have the right to say no to requests, especially since you are not covered under FMLA or ADA, which can protect some timeoff due to health related issues. And you have the right to tell them they must come in later in the week to make up the time (especially the unpaid timeoff).

    You can also require a certain amount of notice from the employee to be able to use either without discipline and can discipline/give points against their attendance record for times where they takeoff without that notice. Heck, you could terminated them if they took off and failed give adequate notice (As defined by you the employer). Now, whether they would get unemployment benefits would be dependent on the facts and circumstances of each situation.

    If you can your policies, you should do so in writing and start fresh from that point. Honestly, your policy sounds generous and it's easy for that to get abused. Many companies limit when the employee can use PTO especially outside of sickness.
  • 05-08-2017, 12:16 PM
    PayrolGuy
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    Absolutly legal. Employers have the right to set schedules as needed.
  • 05-08-2017, 12:45 PM
    cbg
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    Of course you can. You can also legally deny the use of both paid and unpaid time off. There's absolutely nothing in wage and hour laws that limits your ability to schedule employees as the business finds necessary. Mandatory overtime is legal in all 50 states. I'm assuming (yes, I know) that you would have said so if there is a contract or CBA in place that says otherwise. If there is, say so now.
  • 05-09-2017, 02:04 PM
    Motor
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    Great, thank you all for your help! No contracts or CBA in place and no union.

    I am thinking (yet another) re-write of the PTO & UTO policy is in order. This will be the fifth or sixth one in the last year due to various abuses by different employees. It's definitely getting a bit frustrating trying to close loopholes to avoid causing issues with our schedule while still allowing our employees the benefit of flexibility.

    Again, thank you for all of your help!
  • 05-09-2017, 05:06 PM
    cbg
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    What is your current policy?

    You may want to consider instead of allowing the tail to wag the dog and continuing to modify your policy, leave the policy as it is and discipline employees who abuse the policy.
  • 05-09-2017, 05:16 PM
    llworking
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    Quote:

    Quoting cbg
    View Post
    What is your current policy?

    You may want to consider instead of allowing the tail to wag the dog and continuing to modify your policy, leave the policy as it is and discipline employees who abuse the policy.

    I agree with this and will also point out that sometimes your employees are going to be sick or otherwise need time off even if its during your extremely busy season and it won't always work for them to make it up within a short amount of time.

    What you might want to consider is some sort of incentive plan for your busy season, so that your employees will avoid taking any time off at all unless they just cannot avoid it at all. Its quite typical for employers with busy seasons to give some sort of incentive to employees to not take time off. Its also often tied to productivity as well.

    For example, you might want to announce that in lieu of any annual raises for the next year, that instead you will be giving your employees XX amount of extra money per hour during your busy season based on how many hours they are actually present and based on meeting certain production goals. Its kind of a win-win because you won't actually be punishing anyone for being absent, you will just be rewarding those who are there and meet goals.
  • 05-11-2017, 04:00 PM
    Motor
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    This is the current policy, "Employees accrue a certain amount of PTO that can be used for any reason. We also have a specified amount of unpaid time off that they are allowed to use before any disciplinary action is taken. Again, the unpaid time off can be used for any purpose. In either case any time off must use either the PTO or the unpaid time off (UTO) unless a special exception is granted, which happens periodically for various reasons."

    PTO amounts to two weeks a year, unless otherwise negotiated. UTO is 3 days a year, unless special approval is obtained.

    Of course I understand that sometimes they aren't going to be able to make the time up right away, things happen in life. Disciplinary action is being considered, unfortunately there isn't a lot that seems to get through other than loss of money (suspension, which causes us pretty much the exact problem we are already experiencing) or termination. Which causes us the exact same issue, only on a wider scale, especially during the midst of the busy season. Our business isn't one that tends towards having a large pool of skilled candidates. Generally we end up finding someone who doesn't know how to do anything and start training, it can take years before they can see a product through from start to finish on their own.

    I'll have to do some brainstorming on the incentive plan, we've tried a weekly bonus system for meeting a certain production goal without hitting overtime before. Unfortunately that didn't really work well, although some changes may make that work now.

    Thank you for the suggestions!
  • 05-11-2017, 04:31 PM
    cbg
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    What are the accrual amounts?

    What process do they have to go through to take time off, either paid or unpaid?
  • 05-11-2017, 05:43 PM
    hr for me
    Re: Can We Require Employees to Make Up Time Off During Our Busy Season
    agree with cbg -- it is too wide open and suggests they can take off the time whenever they want rather than based on business needs. That is the first thing I would change to help with your scheduling issues. Set the expectation ahead of time.
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