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Natural disasters, such as the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida, can raise questions when it comes to a company’s staff being able to make it to work. For those employees who haven’t been able to communicate with management, do you follow your no-show termination policy? Should employees have to use sick or vacation pay for the time they miss, or do those days just go unpaid? A company needs a plan to follow when natural disasters impact employee attendance.
Even if you have a no-show termination policy that you usually follow, we recommend demonstrating as much flexibility as you can during this chaotic time. Hopefully your attendance policy allows for management discretion; even if it doesn’t say that explicitly, natural disasters are certainly unique enough situations that you should be comfortable making some exceptions to the rule. Hurricanes can result in power outages, gas shortages, school and childcare closings, and massive flooding. When deciding how to respond, consider employee morale and the sensitivity of the larger community.
Many companies have an inclement weather or emergency closure policy for these sorts of situations. These policies typically address communication in the event of outages, attendance during mandatory evacuations, and options for employees. You might, for example, allow employees to work from home, take a PTO or vacation day, or take a day off without pay. If you don’t have a policy like this in place, now might be the time to implement an inclement weather policy.
Please note that if your office is closed, exempt employees must be paid for missed time without reduction in salary. This holds true whether they miss full or partial days. With that said, you may require exempt employees to use accrued vacation or PTO for the day as long as that is your regular practice when the office closes. Exempt employees without sufficient vacation to cover the absence must be provided with their regular salary during the closure.
If the office is open, however, and exempt employees are unable to make it in because of their individual circumstances, this counts as a “personal reason” under the FLSA. In this case, you may make a deduction from their salary if they miss a full day and do no work at all. While a single call in to tell you they can’t make it in will not be considered work, if they check their work e-mail, or make so much as a singular call to a client or colleague, they must be paid for the day.
For more information on how GTM helps manage HR issues like this, contact us at (518) 373-4111.
