Human Resource Blog

Georgia Salaried Managers

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A Georgia company was shut down last week for 3 days due to a power outage after severe weather. Must salaried managers be paid for that time? Can employees be required to take vacation time if they want to be paid?

Some salaried employees are under the erroneous impression that they are guaranteed an annual, monthly, or weekly salary. In fact, they need only be paid for the days they work.

A few states require employers to pay a worker for time not worked. Colorado and Connecticut, for example, require pay for time spent on jury duty. That does not apply here, however.

Otherwise, no state or federal law mandates that a Georgia employer pay workers for time not worked. A number of federal and state laws in fact allow employers to not pay an employee for time he or she is not working.

No law, either state or federal, requires employers to pay employees on those occasions when a natural disaster shuts down a business. In this situation, it appears that a temporary layoff has occurred because of circumstances beyond the control of the employer.

Assuming that the layoff was 2 weeks or longer, then employees might be entitled to unemployment compensation. That is not the case in this situation.

An employer is legally entitled to withhold payment to a salaried worker who misses a day of work even if the employer chose to close the business. However, because this is a salaried employee, if he or she worked even a single hour in a day, a full day’s pay would be required.

An employer would be perfectly within his or her legal right to give the employee a choice – either take 3 days of vacation time (paid) or take 3 unpaid days. Technically, in most states, the employer could even dictate when an employee takes vacation time. The fairest solution here, however, would be to give the employee the option.

Some employees have contracts that stipulate, in writing, that they are entitled to such-and-such an amount of pay annually. If that was the case here, he or she might be entitled to payment. Such contracts are rare. When they do exist, they usually spell out that workers are not to be paid for time not worked. JH