Obviously not, read your own OP. You policy really is:“Whenever I feel like it, I can close the office, and you will be paid, if I decide the office is closed for emergency reasons”. You closed the Office Friday, but didnt want to pay them.
*"With the large storm, the Feds closed at 12 on Friday. All of our Friday patients were moved to the morning and we finished by noon and all of the work was done. I told the staff to go home by noon since we had finished all of our work.
Monday, the Feds were closed. Both staff members stated that their streets were not plowed and they could not come in. I had them cancel the morning patients but I got to the office for the afternoon and saw the one patient that actually came in myself and did all of the usual paperwork etc myself.
Both staff members claimed 1/2 day Friday and a full day Monday pay for snow days.
I told them that I would pay for 1/2 day Monday. Now everybody is upset."
*
And, the office was closed for part of the day Monday- did you expect them to drive in thru a storm for a half day’s pay? Let’s say they had come in- all for one client?
Of course you pay if "the office is closed for Jewish holidays", the important clause being “the office is closed” .
We did not elect them to decide when private businesses should be open and when they should pay their employees. I have never heard any government official get on the radio and say that all businesses must close and their employees must be paid.
It actually does- if I send you home at midday, I’m closing the office and I pay you. If I tell you you can leave if you want to, I’m not closing the office- the Feds call that “unscheduled leave” and if the employee doesn’t have any leave, it is unpaid*. It doesn’t account for those who leave before 7 am - but closing when the Feds close doesn’t account for those who leave before that announcement is made.
Does it lead to less discontent when Psychobunny opens up and people lose a day of pay or leave because the Feds stayed open? NYC got 30 inches of snow last weekend and no government offices closed on Monday- by your standard, every private business should have stayed open as well.
If she sends them home, she’s closing the office and they get paid. If the office stays open and she allows them to leave , its a different situation. They shouldn’t get sent home on a whim, but neither should they expect to be paid if they are told the office is opening at 2 and they decide not to come in. It might be nice of her to pay them. It might even be a good idea for her to pay them. But they shouldn’t expect it.
I largely agree with the previous post. If someone works full time and the boss/company decides to close during normal business hours, for whatever reason, then the full time workers should be paid. If the business is open - no matter the weather - then anybody who doesn’t show up shouldn’t get paid. Part time workers are just out of luck, no matter the reason.
The weather and government or school closings are pretty much irrelevant, IMO. Its up to the boss and the nature of the business when to close. How often does Walmart or 7-Eleven or the hospital close? They expect their workers to show up.
I agree with you here. That is why I changed my mind and decided to pay for Friday. It helps if you know that this is a very casual office and staff usually take off early on Fridays. They will come and say “Hey, I’ve finished my work-can I cut out early” and even if I’m still with a patient I’ll usually let them go, so the chance that people would have worked until 5:30 (normal closing time) on Friday was slim to none. However, that said, the posts here convinced me that since I officially closed the office and told the staff to go home Friday then they deserved payment for that day.
However, like I said, on Monday the weather was good, the streets were clear, there was no storm and the staff all live much closer than I do and nobody needs to leave before 7AM to make it in (which is why I told them I would let them know by 7-so that they would have 2 hours advance notice for at most a 15 minute commute).
As for cancelling patients; many of them would have cancelled anyway and the rest were rescheduled. We try to let patients know at least one day before if we might be cancelled and we don’t charge anything if a patient cancels because of the weather (or traffic, or they just don’t feel like coming in, or they forgot-must look into changing that policy).
As I said, it’s not like this was a raging blizzard on Monday. I was open, the lab pick-up guy was on time, my cleaning guy was there on time. I wasn’t exactly the only one open and people certainly were able to get to the office. The reason most patients cancelled was either because they were elderly or they had childcare issues with the schools being closed (also not an issue for my staff but again not necessarily an issue that would require payment although I have been accommodating in letting staff take personal leave for childcare issues and even bring the child to the office in an emergency).
The initial policy was that these are hourly workers who are paid wages. I paid them for 6 holidays yearly but bereavement was not included. However, when the issue came up, I felt bad and paid the staff member so I decided to put it into my employee handbook that there would be paid bereavement and setting out exactly what qualified and for how long.
It’s not that I don’t want to pay it’s that I can’t afford to. Anybody who has run a small business knows that staffing eats up the largest part of the overhead. I can’t keep the business open if I have to pay too much. I can’t afford to take a vacation (have had more than 4 days off in a row only twice in 12 years) because if I’m not here we don’t make money and if the money doesn’t come in the bills don’t get paid. The staff takes home more than I do some years. I’d love to give them all 6 weeks of paid vacation every year but I can’t. That’s why I try to be fair and tread a tightrope between being unreasonable and getting walked all over (ie staff wanting to be paid overtime for working through her lunch break when she spent the time pumping milk for her baby (and I don’t have a problem with her taking the time to do this, just with claiming it as overtime hours because according to her it didn’t count as a break, even though she was off in a private room and not available during this time)).
Is paid time off the same as vacation? Then, yes, they could use earned, unused vacation time. Which, again, probably wouldn’t apply to part time workers. Or they could have time off without pay.
The local news reports were that some residential streets didn’t get plowed until Tuesday morning. It was so bad that the federal government closed on Tuesday and had a three hour delay on Wednesday. Your snow day policy is your decision but it is BS to saw that because you saw clear streets Monday shouldn’t have been a snow day.
So, if there were *some[/] unplowed streets anywhere in the metro area, employers should be required to pay employees who don’t show up for work? The OP stated that he made it to work just fine. He made it there, and the office was open. That should be the start and end of it. If someone doesn’t show up when the business is open, they don’t get paid… or they can take vacation time, to satisfy the next question.
There have been times, in my region, where MAJOR roads (interstates, designated emergency routes, major roads) have been plowed but virtually none of the residential side streets have seen any attention at all. Granted, that state of affairs isn’t permanent, they got to everyone eventually, but it is possible for there to be a period of time when major roads are open (and lucky you if you live on a “snow route”) but many others aren’t. If it’s a situation where most employees simply can’t get their cars dug out then maybe the hardline “someone made it in, all should make it in” should be re-evaluated. If there are 2-3 feet of snow in the street most people are just not going to be able to dig their way to the cars, dig out the cars, and then dig out the road to the plowed main street. At least not in half a day.
Even here in the Midwest where we are far better equipped to deal with snow overload than further south there are times when some major road may be open but the authorities are asking people to stay home for a bit longer in order to more efficiently deal with the remaining mess.
Yes, most of the time clean up takes less than a day. Most of the time. Not all of the time. Let’s not get over-rigid with the rules.
Fact is, **psychobunny **is the one with the final call here.
Context is always important- but it also works in both directions. Certainly, if most employees simply can’t get to work, evaluating the situation based on the one employee who lives down the block and can get to work doesn’t make sense. And neither does evaluating the situation based on a single employee’s inability to get to work because the landlord didn’t plow the driveway or because the employee lives on a dead-end street that wasn’t plowed while all the other streets are clear or because that one employee who lives 75 miles from the office can’t get out while the roads within 30 miles of the office are all clear or even because the employees won’t be able to find parking when they get to work and don’t want to take public transportation (although it’s possible)
No but this was a lot more than “some unplowed streets”, it was the day after a record setting snowfall. My point was that the OP can have any rule they want on snow days but should just be clear about it. The trying to justify it based on seeing clear streets should be irrelevant and would be if there were a more clear policy. As noted, the federal government was shut down on the day in question and the next day. Most local schools were closed all week. None of those are relevent to the business in question except as an indicator that the roads weren’t as fine as implied.
My objection is the attempt to minimize the problem with this storm. Whether the cost of that problem is the employees to bear or the employer is what the policy is for.
I’d recommend she pay everyone for the time off but use this as a start to a new policy. “Since there was confusion about the recent storm, I want to clarify the policy…”
Just for perspective, I’m a contract employee working in a government facility. When they closed I was not allowed to work but I was also not allowed to get paid unless I took a vacation day. There were some options about getting paid admin leave and then making it up in the next two pay periods.
The problem is what did the employees reasonable expect based on guidance and was that met. Without hearing every word exchanged it sounds like they had a reasonable expectation of being paid for a snow day. Manage the expectations! Don’t quibble over how bad this storm was.
I agree. IMO, the policy should be, “If the boss makes it to work and opens the office/business, then you are expected to be here. If you don’t come for any reason, then you either don’t get paid or use vacation time. Perhaps some sort of comp time can be arranged, but that’s at the company’s discretion”. This policy covers weather, as well as a myriad of other possible issues such as illness, power outage, fire, etc… If the business is open, you are expected to show up. If the business is closed and you are scheduled to work, then you should be paid for a short-term disruption.
What is the total amount we're talking about and is that amount worth the hassle and bad feelings? If these are valuable employees, I would pay the and then modify the manual/handbook so that the policy is clearer.
The staff did have a full day and a half to dig out. Anyway, they are fine with taking PTO for Monday afternoon. In fact, the checks got screwed up and they didn’t get credited for 4 hours of the snow time and I offered to issue additional checks for that 4 hours and they both said to just wait and add the time to the next paychecks. Again, the written policy was made to address this situation which is why it says that if the office is open, the staff does not get paid regardless of why they are not able to come in, but they can take the time as part of their PTO hours without prior notification.
I am on your side and it feels like everything’s been handled well and amicably in the end but:
Talking as though people should personally spend a day and a half digging out their car, the route out of the parking lot, and the street to the main road…personally…and with whatever tools they have on hand (probably one shovel) (when that is the responsibility of paid plow drivers) (after a record-breaking snowstorm) (reminder: more than one foot of snow) to make it into work for half a day’s pay makes me laugh at how ridiculous that sounds. Just, OK then. Sure, they had a day and a half to dig themselves out. :o
I think we’re talking about and additional $80 ($10 dollars x 4 hours x 2 people) to $240 ($30 dollars x 4 hours x 2 people) here. If I were the employer, I would not want to buy ill will for so little.
Also, only one patient came to the office Monday afternoon, so Psychobunny would have paid that same amount to the employees and then would have had an opportunity to grouse about how ‘they got paid to do nothing that day’ while at work. Expecting people to ‘dig themselves out’ is just weird. They could have built jet packs, too, I guess.
The whole thing is just seems petty and a poor business practice to me, especially for such a small shop where everyone probably knows everyone else well. Just because the manager (owner?) made it in (and as a manager/owner, they have a higher order of duty) doesn’t mean it is safe or necessary to require others to do so. The two employees said it wasn’t safe, and with one customer, it sure wasn’t necessary.
How much does it cost to find and train a new employee?
I don’t want to jump on the OP because I think he came to a good resolution and handled it well.
But in no way were things anywhere near normal on Monday. Public transit wasn’t even running until Wednesday. This was a historic storm requiring an enormous clean-up effort-- which went relatively smoothly in part because people were smart and stayed off the roads while the snow removal crews did their thing. People trying to play hero on Monday just hinder the work that was needed to get everyone else back up and running.