Human Resource Blog

Salary employee using the time clock

Would it be illegal to require one single salary employee to use the time clock and not the other salary employees’? We have one salary employee that is consistantly late or will come in for a few hours then leave ill. Or she will take extended lunches. We want to track her time by having her punch the time clock. We will only be doing this to keep track of the hours she acutually works. She still will be getting her full pay.

There is no law prohibiting this measure, but it might not be a good idea. That’s because it could appear to be discrimination if the employee is a member of a protected group. For example, having an employee who is female or over 40 clock in, while employees who are male or younger do not, presents the appearance of discrimination. Heaven forbid if she’s pregnant, even if no one at work knows it. That would be discrimination based on pregnancy.

It also may not solve your problem. After all, if Sally is the only person who is clocking in and out, she could easily claim that everyone else is working a similar schedule. The employer would have no evidence to show otherwise. A better option would be to have all salaried managers clock in and out for a period.

It would be much better to focus on performance management in this situation. If the employee is not putting in enough time, it affects her job performance, right? So it’s better to address those issues directly, rather than focus on the number of hours that she is or is not putting in.