No, federal law requires you to pay employees for all hours they have worked. While you can and should have a policy defining job abandonment (e.g., if an employee no-shows and no-calls three days in a row, you’ll take that as a resignation), you are not allowed to deduct or withhold pay because an employee quits without notice.
Any employee can be classified as a nonexempt employee, although we generally recommend that all employees in the same role have the same classification.
That being said, exempt employees sometimes feel there is a certain “status” involved in being salaried and exempt. If you decide to reclassify an employee, aim to do so in a manner that does not belittle them or cause them to become disengaged.
When reclassifying employees from exempt to nonexempt, it’s important to clearly communicate the change in writing, make the change effective in payroll and job descriptions, and communicate your policies and expectations that will be affected. You’ll also want to ensure that managers understand all applicable wage and hour laws impacting nonexempt employees and how they may affect their day-to-day work. These may include:
Question: Employees are spending a lot of time on thier phones (scrolling social media, browsing the internet, listening to music or podcasts). Can we prohibit personal phone use during work hours?
Q: We have a non-exempt employee who has been working from home. Do we need to pay her for time spent traveling to the office? She’s been asked to drop off some files during her normally scheduled work hours.
Q: We’ve recently learned that one of our employees is planning to leave the company and has been applying for positions elsewhere. Can we terminate them?
Q: Can we ask employees for proof of COVID-19 vaccination?
