Human Resource Blog

Sick Pay

Are employers required to pay salaried employees for being sick if they are out longer than a week?

Under the federal FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) guidelines for exempt employees, different rules apply to absences of an entire payroll week, and absences of a few days. We will address both.

An employer can deduct a days pay from the exempt employees salary, even if the employee is absent only one day, if two conditions are met. The first condition is that the employee does no work at all on that day. This means no conference calls, no calls from employees, no working from home…no work, period. If the employee works 10 minutes that day, he or she must be paid for the entire day.

The second condition is that the employer must have a sick pay plan or policy in effect. Suppose employees at ABC Corp. receive 5 paid sick days per year. Alicia is out sick 6 times. Alicia need not be paid for the 6th absence. However, if the employer did not offer any sick pay to any exempt employee, and Alicia worked the other 4 or 5 days that week, she would be entitled to payment for the entire week.

When an exempt employee does no work for an entire payroll week, the employee does not need to be paid, under the same regulations. This is true whether the employer offers paid sick leave or not.

The relevant link (which has been very popular today) is: www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17g_salary.pdf