What is a good policy for an office staff for vacation sick time, overtime, holiday pay etc. Please help!?

Question

I have a small office with 12 people on staff. We use a time-clock. Problems always come up regarding for example a person who takes a sick day during the week then works extra on let's say Saturday that week then wants to claim 40 hrs plus time and a half for the Sat. We also have pd holidays that stil require 1 or 2 psople to come in and work for a couple of hours. How should they be fairly compensated? How much sick time should people get and how much vacation time. Should they be combined? Should they be paid for the time if they don' t use it? There are constant problems with some people always complaining that others are "getting away with things that they can't get away with. One reason is that people look at other peoples time cards. I think we need a set in stone policy that is generous and fair to everyone. Is there a source for this kind of info????. Thanks

Answer 1

Fisrt, you need to put some stucture and implement some company policies. you can search in the web for your state laws regarding over time since they change for each state. There is a federal laws regarding OT (over Time) and vacation time and sick time as well, that you can use as guide lines. Usually the OT is paid ony when you work over 40 Regular hours, ( sick or vac times is not considered as regular hours) If the employee is calling sick one day and the next day he/she stays longer, is because you don't have a writteng policie and yuo permited. You must have a rule that OT is not permitted upon authorization from you only. Remember that your are the boss, you make the rules. If they don't like it , them let them go.

For the holidays, what you can do is , make diferent schedules and the people the work the last holiday will have the next one paid and off. the ones who worked will be paid time and half (OT).

To solved the problem with the time cards, there are many sofwares that you can use, you can visit : www.dowload.com
and search for management softwares you will find many, and just choose the one is right for you.

Keep in mind that you need stucture and discipline in order to have your empleyees under control. You don't have to be Rude or an authoritarian person to reach control.

One more thing, you shouldn't have any favorite employee, otherwise you'll experience a lot of complaint like the ones you mentioned.

For the last, get some assestment from a laboral lawyer, they can help you design a good company policies manua or employee manual that will help you a lot with HR situations, like discipline procedures.

Answer 2

There are a few issues that need to be addressed.

1. Using sick day and then coming in on a Sunday...
a. Does your business have need for them to work on a Sunday? If not then they should not be allowed to make up that time. Otherwise my policy would be that working on a Sunday would negate the need to use the sick time. Thus they get their 40 hours but no OT.

2. Paid holidays
a. If you still need staff on "paid holidays" and I am assuming you have an equitable way of sharing the duty, I would assign balance time to these days. Working on a holiday allows you to take vacation on another day for the same hours you worked.

3. How much time?
a. I have generally had good luck assigning a value to worked hours that translates to paid time off. Say you assign the value .1 to each hour worked. This would give your employees 8 hours every 80 hours worked. Change the value based on your business need.

Hope this helps! Remember that you run the company and not the employees. This does not mean you have to be a tyrant, just that you have to look out for the needs of the business first. If you don't then the business closes and everyone loses.

Answer 3

I think u need to discuss this with your accountant or tax adviser if u have any. 1st IDK where u at but in US every state has some specific laws about it. In general 40 hrs a week is standard for hourly EE, it doesn't have to apply to salary EE. If holiday (paid) falls in the week, work week is shorten to 32 hours. Normally if EE works on holiday (paid), they get paid double, holiday pay plus regular working pay. Over 40 hrs is consider as OT and it required to pay time and half. Weekly off doesn't have to be sat/sun.
In general small business can't afford to pay too many benefits and stay in competitive market. What u can do is to tell EE to work on weekend once/twice a month and they get weekly day off during weekdays. In general there is no such law that requires U to pay for holidays. What u can do here is instead of holiday pay, pay as bonus which won't count towards there 40 hrs week., that way they can work 40 hrs during holiday week on normal pay and it will help u save some $$ too.
Most small business pay some paid day off after 1 yr of service, Generally 1 week vacation and five major holidays. I don't see small company pays sick days off or so. May be u need to replace computer based time machine. uses magnetic card reader and pin pad, that way no EE can see other EE's time card.

Again I will advise u too consult tax adviser or someone, u don't want to create other legal issue. I can help. I am by Chicago.

Answer 4

Advise them that, unless otherwise stated or previously agreed upon. a work week is 40 hours, including sick leave. So, if a person works four days and is sick one, they have their 40 hours for the week.

Vacation time and sick leave should be kept separate. The growth for both of these time funds is up to you. Every week they earn one sick leave hour and one vacation leave hour, for example.

Working on paid holidays is supposed to be time-and-a-half, so they get the holiday pay PLUS any actual time on the job.

You should look at your business and see how to smartly trim costs. You may also want to think about an electronic time card system with a magentic strip on the back to reduce paper time card snooping.

Answer 5

well some company's give a week for sick. on holiday's it is double time if they work that day. t hen it depends are they salary or hourly. if you feel it necessary to compensate if they don't take all their sick days or vacation by the end of the year then let them take the money instead. you should not combine sick and vacation they are two totally different things. if you work a 40 hours week then anything over 40 hours is time and a half.

Answer 6

Each company is different and you will need to set up rules which make sense to your company..I would suggest calling the HR rep of various companies similar to yours and ask what their policies are.Most are normally quite open ..I would suggest no set amount of sick time allowed as this just promotes time off and anyone who has more than 6 incidents per year be disciplined..Would also disallow anyone who is sick during week to make it up on weekend..Holidays are normally paid at triple time..Good luck