All three of the "white collar" exemptions require payment of a true salary (except for physicians, attorneys, and teachers, who can be paid on a fee or any other basis):
"salary"
is defined as agreed-upon periodic compensation, intended to cover a
period of at least a week, that is not subject to reduction on the
basis of quantity or quality of work performed
that
means that if an employee does poor work, the employer cannot dock
the employee's salary - if the employee violates a rule (other than a
safety rule of major significance), the employer cannot dock their
pay - if the employee misses a few hours in a day, a private employer
cannot dock the salary (but a governmental employer can!)
general rules: if an exempt employee works any part of a workweek, they get the whole salary for the week; if they do not work during any part of a workweek, they get no salary at all for the period
Exceptions and Special Situations:
vacation:
employers can dock the salary in units of a day at a time for
personal absences
sick
days:
employers can also dock the salary in units of a day at a time for
health-related absences if the employer has a sick leave pay policy
absences
due to jury duty, witness duty, or temporary military duty:
a tougher rule applies - if an employee works any part of a week and
misses the rest of the week for jury, witness, or military duty, he
or she must receive the full salary for the whole week, but if they
miss a full week, no pay is due for that week
furloughs:
similar to jury-duty absences - if work is unavailable to an exempt
employee due to the office being closed, or some other reason not
attributable to the needs or actions of the employee, the salary for
that day must be paid
disciplinary
deductions
are allowed under very restricted circumstances: salary can be docked
for suspensions without pay for violations of "safety rules of
major significance" - minor rules do not satisfy that
requirement, so if a salaried exempt employee keeps failing to follow
less serious rules, find another way to discipline the employee - do
not dock their salary!
FMLA-covered
absences
- the FMLA allows partial-day docking of salary, but that works only
if the employer, the employee, and the situation are all covered
under the FMLA
main point: avoid partial-day docking of salary - leave balances may be docked on a partial-day basis, according to the DOL - safest route is to address attendance problems in some way other than deductions from salary. Policy consideration: docking leave balances for partial days missed can lead to morale problems if the employee feels that such a practice amounts to nickel-and-diming on the employer's part, particularly if the employee always works a lot of hours each week in any event
Outside sales representative
only a duties
test applies - for an outside sales representative, the majority of
each workweek is spent outside the employer's place of business
calling on customers and making sales
there is
no minimum wage or salary requirement
the only thing to keep in mind is to follow the commission pay agreement - failure to do so will violate both general contract law and most state wage payment laws
