CNCounty News

Beware the Conscientious Employee

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One Thursday, Margaret wakes up at 5 a.m. with a high fever. She has been fighting a cold for a few days now, feeling a little under the weather, but she has still been going to work. Now that she has a fever, she worries that she might be contagious and doesn’t want to expose her co-workers or clients to an illness. She decides to call in sick.

Margaret is a valued employee. She has been with the county for six years and has a passion for serving others. She is great at customer service, both to her clients and her co-workers. Wanting her illness to create the least amount of impact on others, she logs into the county network and email, and checks her schedule for the day. Her calendar reveals plans for three meetings with external clients, her weekly meeting with her supervisor, a free webinar for continuing education, and a committee meeting regarding a software update and work time.

Margaret emails her supervisor to let her know she is ill, which is an approved method of calling in sick. She then emails a member of the software committee to let them know she cannot attend today, but looks forward to receiving the meeting minutes. She emails co-worker Val to request coverage of her client meetings, being certain to include the details of where to find needed files and the specifics of the meetings. Margaret follows up on several emails she intended to reply to today.

She updates her electronic timesheet to indicate eight hours of sick time/PTO for today. She turns on her automatic “out of office” reply for her email and for her phone message. She logs off an hour later, takes some acetaminophen for her fever, and returns to bed thinking she might log in for the one o’clock webinar if she wakes up in time.

Margaret is a conscientious employee, and she is also a non-exempt employee. This is an important distinction that you need to know about.

Margaret has incorrectly coded her timesheet because she just worked from home, on the county network and county email system, for an hour. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), she must be paid for this time. According to the U.S. Department of Labor website, ”work not requested but suffered or permitted to be performed is work time that must be paid for by the employer. The reason is immaterial. The hours are work time and are compensable.”

If Margaret does view the one o’clock webinar, she will work for another hour. If she checks her email later in the day when she is feeling slightly better, she will log an additional half hour of work time. Suddenly she has worked 2.5 hours and only used 5.5 hours of sick/PTO time.

The use of technology makes it easier and easier for employees to almost inadvertently perform work after hours and on weekends. Email notifications chime and many employees reflexively glance at their phones. Do they respond each time? Are they expected to? While checking emails here and there may not seem like it takes much time, it can add up quickly. Importantly, it may also result in compensable overtime.

So what can supervisors and employers do? First, communicate to non-exempt employees how to properly recognize and record work time. Second, reconsider those after-hours inquiries of non-exempt employees, unless the information is urgent or time sensitive. Third, understand how your organization records time. For example, many electronic systems count time over seven minutes worked as a quarter of an hour.

Fourth, know your organization’s policy permitting work outside of normal working hours and communicate your expectations to your employees. Some organizations require such time to be pre-approved by a supervisor, while other organizations may prohibit such work unless extreme circumstances exist.

Additionally, review your procedure about how to call in sick. Can employees call, text or email to report their absence? When must they do so and to whom do they speak? Speaking to a supervisor gives a single point of contact to someone who can delegate the missing employee’s duties. Consider the example above: What if co-worker Val is also out for the day and is unable to cover Margaret’s client meetings, or what if there is a staff member who can better assist with coverage?

Determine if your computer calendar program has the ability to give permissions for other employees to view details or view limited details so that co-workers can more easily cover for someone who is out. Cross train employees so that they are easily able to cover for one another. Have desk manuals for each position so that if an employee is out and a unique situation comes up, there is a reference guide with instructions.

Consistency is important. Margaret had a fever, took an over-the-counter medication, and only communicated internally with staff. But another employee may have a more serious illness, take a prescription medication that could cause drowsiness and contact external customers. Should that employee be working from home under those conditions? How would a supervisor determine the difference without asking HIPAA-protected questions?

It is better practice to have a consistent policy that prohibits work while employees are ill. Consistent policy and procedure allows employees to take time to recover, protects the organization and ensures that customers receive high levels of customer service. That makes everyone feel better.   

 

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