Should exempt employees be paid for time spent at home due to the swine flu?
If an exempt employee chooses to take time off due to illness (or to care for sick family members if allowed by company policy or state law), and has accrued sick leave or PTO time remaining, he may be eligible for pay under the applicable employer sick leave or PTO policy. If an exempt employee chooses to take time off due to illness, but has exhausted his sick leave or PTO time under company policy, he will generally be entitled to full pay for any day in which he performs any work. If, on the other hand, an employer does not provide sick leave or PTO benefits, the employer generally must pay an exempt employee full pay for any work week in which he performs any work Technically, “any” work could mean sporadic work such as checking emails a few times a day. Taking deductions in violation of these rules could have the inadvertent result of turning the employee and others in the same position into non-exempt employees who are entitled to overtime. To avoid this unintended result, emplo
