Legal Question in Employment Law in Utah

We are a small 30 person operation with a fairly laidback attitude. All of our employees are honest and upright so to this point we haven't had the need to have every detail of employment in binding contract. Most of our employees are hourly, so we don't have a very set policy on Paid Time Off. We recently hired a salary worker, and had him sign a Paid Time Off agreement which basically states that he will acrue 15 days of paid time off incrementally throughout the year (at a rate of 2.3 hours off per pay period -- of which we have 52). We failed to indicate what the consequence of exceeding this limit would be.

Of course, what we intended was that after he exceeded this limit, he would not be paid for his time off. So, he just recently exceeded his paid time off limit of 15 days (through a combination of sick days, vacation days, and personal days). Additionally, he's only been with the company for about 100 days, so he's only technically earned 4 days off. We're okay with giving him all of his 15 days now, we just don't want to keep on paying him for time off.

Can we legally stop paying him for his time off without notice? Is it reasonable to assume that he understands that he won't be paid after he exceeds this limit?

Or do we have to have him sign a more explicit contract indicating what the consequences will be of exceeding the 15 day limit and just suck up the time we've already paid him

1 Answer from Attorneys

Related Questions & Answers

More Labor and Employment Law questions and answers in Utah

Looking for something else?