Human Resource Blog

Salaried Employees Paid Time Off

Can salaried employees take paid time off on an hourly basis or is it by increments of a day (8 hours) only? Our company is incorporated in the state of virginia.

This is a matter of company policy rather than employment law in Virginia. (In a few jurisdictions an employer cannot require an exempt employee to use PTO for partial days. ) However, in Virginia an employer can establish a company policy that exempt employees who miss a few hours of work must use PTO, to limit the total amount of time away from work. Or, the employer can require that employees use PTO only in full or half-day increments, which discourages emplyees from working partial days.

In either case, an exempt employee who works any portion of the day must be paid his or her full salary for the day, under the federal FLSA. However, the employer can discipline or terminate the employee for leaving work early.

Special conditions like FMLA or ADA would require the employer to give an exempt worker unpaid time off — but you have not indicated that those conditions apply in this case.