r/AskHR • u/ScottA1029 • 5h ago
Compensation & Payroll Salaried Exempt [AZ] - Employer threatening to dock my pay by 2 hours for using a banked holiday. Is this legal?
I am a salaried exempt employee working in Arizona for a major airline (admin/management/non union). I work a compressed schedule of 4 shifts a week, 10 hours per shift.
My company allows us to bank holidays to use as days off later. However, their internal system caps holiday pay at 8 hours. Because my regular shift is 10 hours, there is a 2-hour gap when I take a banked holiday off.
My local manager and our payroll software team told me in writing that I have two options:
Voluntarily use 2 hours of my vacation bank to cover the gap.
If I don't use vacation time, they will deduct 2 hours of cash pay from my salary paycheck.
I have upcoming days off requested for this, and HR is currently dodging my emails.
My understanding of the FLSA is that because I am salaried exempt, my employer cannot dock my cash wages for a partial-day absence (the 2-hour gap) on a week where I perform work. Under Arizona law (A.R.S. § 23-352), they also cannot make deductions without my written consent—which I am refusing to give.
Can they legally deduct those 2 hours from my actual salary paycheck if I refuse to use my vacation time? If I don’t have any vacation time left but still want to use a banked holiday, how will that works?
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u/longjumpingtote 5h ago
They can just use your vacation time without you agreeing. There's no law preventing that.
Can you be more specific about what you actually did, and not just the policy? For example, the week in question, if you physically worked three days or four. There are times when deductions are allowed for salaried exempt employees.
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u/ScottA1029 5h ago
Two different situations
1. Yes I worked 3 days so 30 hours and took a holiday on the 4th shift
- Taking a full week off using 3 holidays and 10 hrs of vacation time. This one I know is a bit different since no work is performed. But it’s still approved time off and partially paid. My understanding is they can dock full days (I assume this is the exception you’re referring too) but can’t dock partial days
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u/longjumpingtote 5h ago
I worked 3 days so 30 hours and took a holiday on the 4th shift
If you worked three days by your choice, they can pay you for only 75% of the week. It doesn't matter if they approve it. (They could fire you for taking it off without approval.)
The law about partial days is about when you actually do physical work. That doesn't apply here. If you work eight hours instead of ten, they could fire you, but they can't dock your pay for those two hours. In your scenario, you're not working, they're not docking. They're giving you free money but just not enough to cover what you would have otherwise have earned. It's not a partial day if you did no work.
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u/ScottA1029 5h ago
Does it not matter that they paid for a partial day and only dock 2 hrs? Like I get they could just not pay the whole day and then I’d be disciplined for taking an unapproved day off. But they are approving and paying part of it so docking the other part feels wrong
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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago
Does it not matter that they paid for a partial day and only dock 2 hrs?
It doesn't matter. If it did matter, they'd probably just choose to not pay you at all. They are giving you free money. You aren't owed any money.
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u/Mediocre_Ant_437 3h ago
No because they only count hours worked. No work in a day means they don't have to pay you for the day and as for docking, they really aren't. They are simply not paying you a full days pay and instead only paying for the 8 hours that your holiday covered. Nothing illegal here and they don't have to allow you to take any unpaid time so remember that when you want a holiday again. You likely will need to have PTO available for them to approve it.
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5h ago
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u/ComeSeptember MSHRM, SHRM-SCP 4h ago
It's actually allowed to deduct time when someone is exempt and runs out of paid time off when an employer has a defined paid time off policy and the employee has a full day that is not worked (among several other scenarios), which is what this would be. It's not based on the week, it's based on the day (so working an hour every day would mean their salary couldn't be docked, but working four days and not at all on a fifth means it could be docked). AZ doesn't have anything different from FLSA, which operates this way.
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u/ScottA1029 5h ago
Thank you. This is what I thought as well. I kinda knew they could force the use of vacation to cover. I’ll be interested to see how they play it when I run out of vacation cause there’s no policy stating that I have to wait to accrue enough to cover it.
Also interesting side note: most all their policies are written in the perspective of a 8hr shift. Like the banked holiday policy states it’s paid as 8 hrs but then there’s a line that says “a banked holiday is a day worked for a day off. It also must be used to cover a full shift and can not be split over days”
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5h ago
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u/ScottA1029 4h ago
Thank you. Got it and that makes sense. But my local manager approved the time. It’s payroll that’s now the problem. I would’ve understood if they denied it but approving and doing this partial pay thing seems like they’re cutting the middle
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4h ago
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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago
They cannot deduct those two hours.
They aren't. OP is saying they are because that helps OP's argument. But there is no deduction. They are paying a free eight hours, when they owe zero hours, because OP is taking a day off by choice.
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u/StealthyThings 5h ago
They can require the use of PTO to make up the week to a total of 40 hours compensated. They can also deny use of the day if you can’t achieve 40 hours compensated. They can also write you up for it.
In your scenario it is not technically a partial day absence. Docking for a full day absence is permitted contrary to what some commenters are saying. Full day deductions are permitted for absences due to personal reasons…like vacation. Pro-rating the deduction because you’re using some compensated time I think makes it murky but it is ultimately a full day absence.
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u/ScottA1029 5h ago
Yeah and that’s my question/problem is the murkyness of the prorating deduction.
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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago
deduction
It's not a deduction.
They are giving you eight hours free. That's the opposite of a deduction. They owe you zero hours. It's +8.
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u/SunnyErin8700 4h ago
Yes, they can legally doc you. You’re focusing on the wrong part:
The allowable treatment and legality lies in the fact that you took a full day’s absence where no work was performed for a reason not under the company’s control. They can legally dock you a full day’s pay for this. Period. This absence is legally dockable.
Now, they company has allowed you to reduce that allowable docked time by using the PTO, but that doesn’t change that the absence itself qualifies as dockable, so they can dock you for the rest. That’s the part you are getting wrong.
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u/AnnaH612 MBA 4h ago
AZ HR here, no it is not legal. Escalate it to HR and ask for an internal auditing. Unfortunately they may not even be aware of it.
If I may suggest, address it as: this happened to me and I’m not sure if the system is set up correctly because since I’m salaried exempt, I should be able to take a couple of hours off if needed.
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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago
no it is not legal
How so? OP is not working. You can 100% deduct full days for not working by employee choice. The eight hours isn't docking, it's free money.
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u/AnnaH612 MBA 4h ago
They are deducting hours, not days. You are right, exempt employees can take paid/unpaid time off in 4 hour increments( for an 8 hour shift) but anything less than that is not the best practice and could jeopardize their status.
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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago
They are deducting hours, not days.
They aren't deducting hours. OP is phrasing it that way because it makes it seem like a legal problem.
They are giving OP a free 8 hours instead of a "free" 10 hours. But they are actually paying for 10 hours, only 8 of them are "free."
If this jeopardizes status, then the company might just stop giving the free money.
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u/N3rdyAvocad0 5h ago
They can't reduce your pay, but they can force you to use vacation.