Employee has 12 paid days off (5 to be taken consecutively) and 6 paid sick days. Employee manual says once vacation days are scheduled then any changes have to be approved by supervisor who will approve or deny the change. Employee has had attendance issues in the past which have been discussed with them (and documented). Employee has already used all sick days and 4 of the vacation days. These 4 vacation days were previously scheduled later in the year. They just call in the morning and say they need to change one of those and take it today. We've not denied their request since they are basically saying I'm not coming in today so we'll dock their bank of vacation days. This is causing staffing problems in their department. If the next time they call and we deny their request, due to staffing, and they don't come in can we take disciplinary action even though they have some vacation days left and will be paid? We don't allow time off without pay until all paid time has been used. I don't think we can tell them how to take their vacation days but if they are not following the manual in getting them approved can't we deny the request and use that to take action? I have trouble comprehending how we can call it an unexcused absence yet they get paid to be off.

I say get your HR department and your HR attorney involved. Vacation needs to be approved prior to taking. If they call in and want to use a vacation day today because they are out of sick days, deny the request based on staffing, then take disciplinary action.

You may as well (in addition to osucpa) wish to find out from HR if vacation days are accrued or given lump sum at the begining of the year.

Vacation days are given in a lump sum at the beginning of the year. We are a small, 75 employee institution and I am the 1 person HR department. The supervisor wants to take some type of action, possibly probation. I'm just trying to determine if we can call a paid day off an unexcused absence. It would be unexcused in the fact we deny allowing it but we're going to pay them for it since they still have days in their vacation bank of time.

Could you classify it as unscheduled time off? Can you update your policy that X number of unscheduled time off results in a disciplinary action. ( X number of unscheduled time off in excess of the X number of sick days)

I would imagine that you can not discipline for it until it is in your policy and employees have been notified.

The key is how your policy manual addresses unexcused absences, based on sickness, inability to get to work, etc. Once all sick days have been exhausted, what happens?

Example: Two unexcused absences in a twelve-month period may result in disciplinary action. A third period of unexcused absence in any twelve months may result in additional disciplinary action, up to and including termination.

Do you have to call it unexcused? Call it unapproved or unscheduled, which speaks directly to the policy violation and would avoid any confusion about whether it was a paid day off or whether the supervisor said "OK" when they called in to say they weren't coming to work that day.

You said you discussed and documented previously. If the line was not clearly drawn to where you are comfortable with disciplinary action at this point, I'd say take this opportunity to make it crystal clear and punish the next offense.

There has now been a documented meeting where everything was spelled out to the employee as to future occurances. Thanks everyone for your input.

I was going to suggest a meeting with all parties involved, including the employee. Since you have allowed it prior, without notice in advance, i'd think you are creating a possible lawsuit scenario. Good that you've handled via meeting, i would also make sure the employee has signed acknowledging...