Human Resource Blog

TOWP (Time Off With Pay)

For an exempt employee who works 15 mins. on a given day do they receive TOWP for the balance of 7.75 or because they are exempt and worked a brief period that day is it considered as they worked 8 hours and there is no TOWP?

This is a matter of company policy, not employment law. The federal FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act requires that the employer pay the worker his or her usual salary for the day, if the employee works at all during the day. Nothing in the federal law would prevent the company from counting the day as 7.75 hours of PTO, paid vacation, or time off with pay (TOWP). Under the federal law, what matters is the amount on the employees paycheck — not whether it is tabulated as paid time off or work.

Many employers would require that the employee use PTO, vacation or sick time for such time off. This is done partly to limit the total amount of time off that an employee can use during the year.

However, if the exempt employee has no paid leave available, he or she must still be paid the entire salary for the day.

Just to make it a little more complicated, in a very few jurisdications (California) the courts have ruled that such time off cannot be counted as vacation or PTO. However, in 98% of the US, it can be counted as vacation, PTO or TOWP.