There are two main categories of employees – those who are non-exempt, or hourly, and those that are exempt, or salaried. These salaried employees are a bit trickier to manage since they accrue time off based on how many hours they work per week.
For example, some of them work far more than 40 hours per week if they have deadlines to meet. These additional hours then become time off at a later date. In order to keep all of this straight, you need to use timesheets for salaried employees.
Companies that only hire non-exempt employees do need to use timesheets as well, although they have an easier time with them. This is because those employees are only paid for the hours that they work. There’s no need to track the time off that they’ve earned because many of them follow a standard Monday through Friday work schedule. It’s a bit trickier for companies that have a large number of salaried employees.
Do Irish Businesses Need to Have Timesheets for Salaried Employees?
As a matter of fact, you don’t. There’s no law in place stating that is necessary. However, you should consider keeping timesheets for salaried employees, just to ensure that they’re working the hours that they’re supposed to be.
It’s almost too easy for a salaried employee to shorten their hours here and there, hoping that no one notices. They’re being paid for 40 hours per week, but might only be working 36. This is unfair to the other employees and will wreak havoc on your business.
With that said, if you truly want an accurate account of all of the hours that your salaried employees work, then you need to track them. A good tracking system uses timesheets that let you know how much time off these employees have accrued on top of their usual vacation time.
This way, when an employee asks for a Friday or a Monday off, you know whether or not they have those eight hours available. There are other reasons for these tracking methods as well.
Which Departments Does the Employee Work for?
In some cases, you’ll have employees who work for more than one department. This happens a lot with large companies. The employee might spend three hours each day working for one single department, another three hours for another, and then two hours for a third.
All of those hours need to be budgeted for in each department. It does get tricky, but with the right management software in place, the system will track the hours accordingly. This makes it easier on the department heads.
Also, if that employee winds up spending most of their time working for one department over another, it might be time to shuffle things around to ensure that every segment of the business is handled evenly.
Paid Time Off Requests Won’t Become a Hassle
Since salaried employees accrue time off on an hour by hour basis, everything needs to be tracked appropriately, including time off requests. Companies that allow their employees to track their own hours on a handwritten timecard or sheet of paper are just asking to have problems. The employees might fudge their hours a bit here and there, or just forget to write them down at all.
As a result, no one will really know how many hours that employee should have off. This isn’t a problem with a good automated timesheet program. If the employee needs to clock in and out as if he or she is hourly, then there won’t be an issue.
Tracking for Certain Projects
Another reason behind implementing a tracking program for salaried employees is if you need to note which projects they are working on. Many companies have something called billable time that gets invoiced to the clients.
For example, law firms and advertising companies do this quite a bit. This billable time must be tracked accurately, and there’s no better way to do this than with a specific program. If it’s left to a manual system, mistakes can be made. This can become a problem.
How to Track Salaried Employee’s Time
The best way to track the hours that your salaried employees work is with a biometric system. This software is usually activated by a fingerprint, ensuring that no one but that employee can clock in and out. The automated systems then keep track of all of the hours worked, alerting you when that employee has earned a whole or half day off.
On top of this, these systems can break the hours worked down by client, project, or department, simplifying the entire process. You won’t have to worry about manually determining how many hours have been worked or where that time was spent. These systems are very accurate.
