Human Resource Blog

Physically worked hours

If a salaried employee has physically worked 28 hours in a week and 16 hours consists of vacation/holiday. He sould be paid 44 hours or 40 hours.

Secondly in the same week if he has exceeded 1 day on his vacation time he should be paid for 36 or 32 hours?

Thanks

This depends upon whether the salaried employee is exempt or non-exempt. An exempt employee is never entitled to overtime, regardless of the number of hours worked in the payroll week. Nor is the exempt employee docked when he or she works fewer hours in the payroll week. The exempt employee receives the same salary every week, regardless of the number of hours that the exempt employee physically works. (When most people use the term *salaried employee* they really mean *exempt employee. The concept of *hours worked* is really irrelevant for an exempt employee — he gets paid the same whether he works 20 hours in the week or 80 hours in the week.)

So in your first question, the number of hours that the exempt employee worked is irrelevant. The employee is entitled to his or her full weekly salary, and no more than the full weekly salary, each week. 

If an exempt employee takes one or more days off for personal business, the employee need not be paid for that time. Usually excess vacation time (over and above what the employer provides) is for personal business. So in that case the employees salary can be prorated based upon the number of days the employee worked that week (not the number of hours the employee worked that week.) Suppose Juan usually works 6 days per week. Last week,he worked only 5 days and took one extra day off. Juan is entitled to 5/6 of his weekly salary for that week.

However, if a salaried employee works any portion of the day, he must be paid for the entire day. Suppose in the example above, Juan worked 1 hour on the 6th day. In that case, Juan must be paid his usual salary for that day, and for the week.

If the salaried employee is non-exempt, they are basically an hourly employee. In that case, by law, the employee must be paid for hours worked. An employee who works 28 hours and is paid for 16 hours of vacation and/or holiday pay is entitled to 44 hours of straight time. A non-exempt employee who works 28 hours and has 8 hours of holiday pay (but no vacation time left) would be paid for 36 hours.