It’s been a crazy week at work (this is my second post this week seeking advice for an impossible situation). But I woke up today to some interesting news that I would love some legal feedback on.
My CEO sent out a new policy, starting in 8 days, covering hybrid work and attendance. It starts by outlining who gets to work from home. Surprise! Directors can work from home or in office as they choose, but everyone else has to be in office 5 days a week. Currently, we only have to be in office 4 days a week, and there’s been flexibility to work from home if we are traveling, sick, or have a doctor’s appointment.
So that’s annoying, but the second part of the policy is what I need legal advice/knowledge on. We will now have to clock in and out of work, and abide by the following policies:
- A day is only counted as a worked and paid day if a clock-in record is present for that date.
Clocking in remotely on a designated in-office day is not permitted, that day will automatically be counted as unpaid.
- Clock ins after 8:15am, starting at 8:16am, are considered half days. Employees will not be paid for the first half of the day.
- Clock in discrepancies will be flagged. If the flag is not responded to within 24 hours, they will default to an unpaid absence.
- Employees can request exceptions. Approved exceptions must be documented prior to the applicable work day.
- Retroactive exceptions will not be granted and will default to unpaid days.
From what I’ve read, you can’t dock a salaried employees pay in this way. And even if you could, rounding 15mins up to 4hours of docked pay doesn’t feel legal.
So my questions here are:
- Is this legal? Why or why not?
- Does this change my employment status from exempt to non exempt,
- Advice on how to navigate this is appreciated.
Location: Illinois
Editing to add: I take public transit to work, so getting to work on time is not always promised. But I normally do.