Medical office employee vacation pay inquiry...

[yasir]

Just fired my Office manager and didn't realize she had accrued close to ****ing 300 hours in vacation time Yes i know.... unfortunately there was no employee manual in place and me being the new employer and her being a player,an RN for quite a few years...she surely knew how to play the ****ing game....any way i now have to pay her $22.50/hr ...
Now the question is....can i pay her the vacation that was accrued at the end of each year starting with her hire date...at that particular rate rather then paying her what she is making now i,e $22.50/hr...
Yes she was able to screw me for few years but at the end i still won the game didn't i.....
Thanks...

[911Rob]

I'd try it, what have you got to lose?

[stomachmonkey]

I don't think you can.

It's one of the reasons co's have a use it or lose it policy with regard to vaca time.

When employees hang on to time for years the value of that time goes up with their salary.

I think the only way to pull it off is to have the policy already in place and documented.

[p911dad]

This isn't what you want to hear, but I believe you pay at the present value of the time accrued, or in other words, her present day pay rate.

[idontknow]

From http://www.labor.ky.gov/ows/employmentstandards/faq/

"Must my employer pay my vacation pay upon termination of employment?
Whether you are paid for unused vacation upon termination of employment depends on the policy or past practice of your employer. Kentucky labor laws do not specifically require that an employer pay an employee for unused vacation upon termination of employment."

So no, by law you are not required to pay unused time. Without an employee manual to give guidance or set policy, There is no policy that requires you to do so either.

[Moneyguy1]

Was she that bad a person that you would want not to pay her or are you just upset to find out she had accrued so much vacation? There are at least two sides to every story.

[yasir]

Originally Posted by Moneyguy1

Was she that bad a person that you would want not to pay her or are you just upset to find out she had accrued so much vacation? There are at least two sides to every story.

We have a time card machine at work where you swipe the card to record your time..Every time there's a change ( manual over ride ) there would be an asterisk against your time indicating it was altered....I just found out that she had countless i mean literally countless asterisk's against her times....
Our work week is an 8 hours a day and 4 days/week meaning 64 hours biweekly..she not had countless 75+ hours in a payperiod but also managed to get quite a bit of overtime by putting in ****ing numerous 11 hour days....The reason i didn't know was 'coz one i trusted her and secondly she was starting her day at 7.15 am and was working well into later eve hours when i wasn't there...Office hours are AM to 5,30 pm...
Well i take all the responsibility for trusting any employee let alone my right hand,my OM...
Good thing is...i learned a lot as an employer from this incident...
So tell me does she sound like a bad employee....

[Joeaksa]

Isnt this the person who was clocking in at times when she was not at work or some shady situation like this?

[NICKG]

you should speak to the police for the possibility of fraud or embezzelment charges against her...not wheather you should pay her vacation.

[Moses]

If she was not actually there during the times she altered her time card, she is guilty of theft.

I would tell her that if she pursues vacation compensation, you will have her arrested.

I HATE thieves.

[Moneyguy1]

yasir:

Thank you for the clarification. Agree that iti s theft.

[legion]

Unfortunately, this is one of those "what is going to cost less to make the problem go away" type of situations. You need to weigh the potential cost of vacation against years of litigation.

I know. It ain't right. But in my time in the business world (13 years now), the type of people who so brazenly steal from their employer will march immediately into a lawyer's office if they feel that they were wronged in any small way. (The wrongs they committed do not figure into their logic.)

So, what is going to cost less? A $6,750 payment for vacation or defending (what in Kentucky) is a meritless lawsuit for unpaid vacation. It's your call.

[RickM]

I'm not clear. She worked these overtime hours and you were unaware that she was working these overtime hours?

This doesn't sound like vacation time, so nix that.

It does shows a pattern, on her part, that appears to have been allowed to take place for an extended period of time. She may have a case.

If she fraudulently clocked hours then do as advised above.

[Tobra]

You should have been watching more closely. I had a situation where an employer cooked the books and cost me a bit north of $100 G's. He was my "friend", very charming, bit of a sociopath, has done the same bit repeatedly I have no doubt.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by legion

Unfortunately, this is one of those "what is going to cost less to make the problem go away" type of situations. You need to weigh the potential cost of vacation against years of litigation.

I know. It ain't right. But in my time in the business world (13 years now), the type of people who so brazenly steal from their employer will march immediately into a lawyer's office if they feel that they were wronged in any small way. (The wrongs they committed do not figure into their logic.)

So, what is going to cost less? A $6,750 payment for vacation or defending (what in Kentucky) is a meritless lawsuit for unpaid vacation. It's your call.

Ain't that the truth.

Had a girl who I trained and helped get a job at a co where shortly afterwards I also took a gig.

The staff were required to fill out weekly time cards. They were all salaried, not hourly. After a few years of growth we built a new facility and moved into it and a lot of those old records were deemed useless and chucked.

During her time there she had 3 kids. She had difficult pregnancies requiring her to be on strict bed rest. For the first she was out on disability for 6 months plus child care leave. The reduction in pay was a serious financial burden for her.

For the second kid I kept her full time until the 9 month. Got her a laptop and couriered work back and forth to her home. I know she was not giving 40 hrs but she was a valued staff member so I tried to help as much as I could.

She had terrible separation anxiety after #2. So for #3 I had a cable modem installed at her house and set up the system so she could work remotely and be more efficient. I modified her child care so that for the first few weeks back she was in 2 days, then we went to 3 days and worked up to a full week. This prolonged her child care time beyond the 12 weeks.

During her time with me I increased her pay nearly 60% and promoted her twice.

My staff was predominantly women and I had never promoted a man on my staff, only women.

So I'm out on child care with my first. The friday before I am do to come back I check vmail and have a message from HR. Do not go to your office. Come straight to us. We have a situation but the attorneys are already dealing with it so don't worry. Don't worry!!! WTF is going on? Call HR and they tell me that my loyal staff member has accused me of sexual discrimination, I did not give her a promotion that she wanted because she was a woman. We had numerous meetings on what she needed to do to get to the next level.

Naturally HR did not believe her and it turns out a member of the group that I inherited from another division was gunning for my spot and he convinced her to go to HR.

She had also figured out what she did was stupid and retracted. A couple of months later we had a layoff, I'll give you two guesses what two staff members I let go.

She went to an attorney with fabricated time sheets claiming she should have been an hourly employee, not salaried. She knew we had tossed a lot of the early docs and that we could not prove she was lying.

We ended up having to pay her nearly 3 months salary.

No good deed goes unpunished.

[bivenator]

I'm amazed you have an RN working for 22.50 at the end of her employment. That is really, extremely low.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by bivenator

I'm amazed you have an RN working for 22.50 at the end of her employment. That is really, extremely low.

Not disagreeing but cost of living and pay scales in many parts of the country are very low. TN, KY and that area is not known for its high pay. Course as well you can buy a very nice house for $80,000.

[yasir]

2 issues here....
1)-Overtime:
Dept of labor is still involved in this issue....since i paid her health insurance for the past year,dept of labor considered that as an overpayment so instead of getting a check for $5740 she will most likely be getting a check for $400
2)-Vacation :
further 2 issues....
a)-I have the security alarm records where few times where the alarm deactivation and her timing didn't match...e,g one time the alarm was deactivated at 7.AM and her time card showed 7.AM with an asterisk next to it...meaning the time was put in manually....
b)-The system i had for vacation worked something like....the number of hours worked X .04=hours vacation earned but the problem was,i forgot to cap the number of hours one can earn this way...hence the ***** accumulating all those hours...
Now the problem is i did tell her 3/4 years ago about not carrying over more then 10 days ( 80 hours ) to the next year but little did i know what she was doing..
So now it would be her word against mine ( no employee manual ) so how do i approach this ? It boils down to $6500 in vacation money vs getting an attorney and pursuing her as time theft ?
One of the links ( 4 Th reply from the top ) does say no vacation paid clause for the employees terminated ? Shall i look into that ?
later

[yasir]

Originally Posted by bivenator

I'm amazed you have an RN working for 22.50 at the end of her employment. That is really, extremely low.

$22.50/hr + $300/month ( office manager ) + $500/mth ( health insurance ) so you see the package wasn't really that bad.... Even in hospital settings,RN's here in KY don't make that kinda money....
So the question is
1)- Why was i paying here that much.....I REALLY DON'T KNOW :roll eyes:
2)-Still can't understand why would someone throw away such a nice job ...the question remains un answered....

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by Moneyguy1

yasir:

Thank you for the clarification. Agree that iti s theft.

To be sure, is there a legitimate reason this might have happened? have you reviewed other peoples records to make sure that this isn't a glitch in the system?

Not questioning your decision, just thinking you'll want to be sure that you're doing the right thing. Should you prove to be right, I'd not pay the vaca either!

EDIT: you said "a)-I have the security alarm records where few times where the alarm deactivation and her timing didn't match...e,g one time the alarm was deactivated at 7.AM and her time card showed 7.AM with an asterisk next to it...meaning the time was put in manually...."

So I'm confused. If she's deactivating the alarm at 7AM, why wouldn't it make sense that her card also said 7?