How much better would your job be if it were Salaried nonexempt?

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@doreen

OK, a question for all the salary non-exempt people. The non-exempt people at my job have a consistent schedule of 37.5 hours per week. But if one of them has used up all of their assorted leave time , they might take a day of leave without pay and work and be paid for only 30 hours that week. Or even take 2.5 hours off and be paid for 35.To my mind, that makes them hourly workers- but what happens with salary non-exempt when you take a day off and don’t have leave to cover it? Do you get paid less or do you jus get extra time off?

It sort of depends; if I had no PTO left, I’d basically have the option of unpaid leave or working from home. If something dire had happened, then it would be the donated PTO bank (employees can donate PTO for people in dire straits; typically it’s for people who are caregivers for suddenly ill spouses and the like.), or possibly short term/long term disability.

Of course in practice, it’s more loosey-goosey. I don’t bother to do PTO forms for doctor visits or anything that’s not an entire day long. I just go and come back the following day, or show up late. Nobody cares, since I get my work done on time and well. Based on some of my co-workers’ problems with their children and/or seriously ill spouses, I think there’s a fair amount of “Did you check your emails yesterday when you were out? If so, then you technically worked and we wont’ ding you for a PTO day.” going on, since they do get their jobs done and are valuable members of the team in normal circumstances.

Typically the only full days I’m off are either pre-planned vacation days, or sick days where I’m so miserable that I can’t just work from home.

[doreen]

@Dangerosa

Most jobs I’ve worked, as a salaried person taking a day off here or there, I don’t bother to put it down for vacation - I just don’t come in. Or, if I have a doctors or dentist appointment, I can work from home for the day and it doesn’t count. Generally, any day I touch email or call in for a single meeting is not an eight hour vacation day. So it becomes hard to run out, because I don’t use them for dentist appointments, school events, the occasional mental health day or a long weekend.

But are you exempt or non-exempt? I understand salaried exempt just fine. It’s the the salaried non-exempt I don’t get. I find it difficult to imagine a job where you can take a day or even a couple of hours off here and there and not either use vacation time or lose pay even though as a non-exempt employee they will be legally required to pay you time and a half the following week if you work 50 hours. A job where I can work 2 hours less than my regular schedule this week with absolutely no possibility of losing pay ( not even if I just came back from a six week vacation that used up all my vacation and want to leave early to attend the kindergarten assembly) but where I am legally entitled to be paid time and a half for working 2 hours over 40 next week. I’m starting to wonder if it’s just a status thing where people think it sounds better to be say they are salaried non-exempt rather than hourly - even if there’s no actual difference.

Khendrask , your description sounds like you are being treated as exempt- if you’re non-exempt , you’re entitled to time and a half for hours over 40 in a week.

[madmonk28]

In my office, the only salaried non-exempt people are the entry level positions for kids right out of college. They keep track of their hours very carefully and do qualify for overtime.