Should an employee with a flex time arrangement get a lower salary as well as having their salary prorated?

Question

An employer has agreed to allow an employee to have a flex time schedule. The employee's salary and benefits are prorated -- for example, they work 4 days a week, so they are docked a day's pay for the day off and their vacation time is 8 days a year instead of 10 days). Should the employee also have their base pay reduced for the privilege of having a flex time schedule? Employer thinks if the normal pay scale for the employee is $40,000/yr, then the flex time employee should have a base salary of, say, $35,000/year for this privilege, plus get docked for the days off.

Answer 1

That is called double dipping. You are already getting paid less because you lose the pay for the days you don't work.

And by the way that is called Part-Time not flex time. Flextime means you still work 40 hours but instead of 5-8 hour days you work 4- 10 hour days or 9 hour days with every other week having a day off.

Answer 2

Flex time arrangements vary greatly. There are certainly many employees who would love the opportunity to work from home. From an employer perspective, however, you always have the issue of knowing how productive that "home worker" is compared to peers.

The reality is that some people are very disciplined and will likely do more work from home absent the social time of the work place, while others are doomed to fail in the type of environment because they simply lack the discipline.

Depending on the type of business you also need to consider to how much interaction is required with peers and/or customers.

Another dilemma for employers is, where do you draw the line? What if everyone decides they want to work from home.

I am aware of cases where telecommuting works very well, but I have also seen it escalate out of control.

Answer 3

I wouldn't think that is reasonable, but it IS legal. Your pay can be whatever you and your company agree to, as long as you are paid at least minimum wage which doesn't seem to be an issue here. You aren't getting "docked" for the days you don't work, you are getting paid only for the days you do, which is fair enough.

Answer 4

Nope, they should be paid what they are worth.