re: What's fair reimbursement of time for working 1/2 day on weekend?

I'm trying to figure out what their gripe is?

The way we handle it is, "I need you to work Saturday. If not, I don't need you next week."

Are they salary exempt? Life is about decisions. They can decide if they want to work or not. If they say no to weekends then they choose to not work for you.

Are they salary/exempt? If so, are you rock solid with that classification?

Assuming you aren’t setting a trap for yourself in that regard, I think what you’re doing sounds fair. Not sure of the field, but the reality is that managers in a ton of fields have to work weekends whether from the office or from home.

From personal experience, I would say that folks want two things with regards to weekend work: fair compensation and advanced notice.

One of my biggest gripes with my wife’s job (nurse) has been their shitty on-call practices - if she’s on-call, it means we have to line up child care. If she doesn’t get called in, it’s a huge headache because we sometimes have a babysitter lined up but then don’t need them. The pay she gets for being “on-call” without actually getting called in doesn’t compensate us for this. I’m not sure whether this applies to your business, but just something to keep in mind. If you’re asking someone to be available on the weekend but don’t end up needing them, you should (IMO) still make it worth their while.

I think your practice is fair.

The problem is the way many employees think and they're right to some degree. Working four hours on a Saturday isn't just fours and the attitude from them is probably that the day for them as a personal day is shot.

I like the idea of offering the following Friday for a three day weekend.

Good luck. Employees can be great or they can be a pain in the arse.

As others have said, you need to identify flsa status and how this would work into overtime hours if they are non-exempt/hourly. You absolutely cannot offer them comp time in exchange for overtime pay... that is what most of us who mentioned flsa status are getting at. Just because they are "managers" doesn't mean they would pass an flsa audit with that exempt classification.

You should have a weekend rotation/policy- make sure it is clear and sets expectations. I know, I know, you probably hate policies... but every employer tries to do this type of thing to be "generous" and "simple" and it always, ALWAYS ends in chaos.

Childcare was my exact thought as to why employees might find this problematic. If it's regularly scheduled, then they can arrange for day care, friends, babysitter, etc. But an irregular schedule is havoc on sitter planning, esp if you are relying on paid weekend daycare: for which you generally have to pay, whether you use it or not.

I'd just make the Saturdays part of someone's standard schedule. Figure out who bitches least about it, and make it part of his/her job. It's not a rotating thing--it just becomes an official part of Ed's work.

If these folks aren't salaried/exempt, then you can't swap out comp time for what should be paid as overtime.

quote:

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The issue is I need someone management worthy to work 12-4 ish on Saturdays. Its once a month for the most part occasionally twice. I know ruining a Saturday sucks being middle of the day. I want people to have 2 days of weekends and not get burned out. So yes I'm pretty pissed that people aren't even happy. But I also want to be fair and employees happy.

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An 8am-12pm shift wouldn't be terrible since they could have the rest of their Saturday off, but making a management level employee come in at noon and stay till 4pm for only 4 hours of work is going to get old, especially during football season. You will start to lose good management level talent over something like that unless you are paying well above market rate in salary.

I think the idea of offering the next Friday off (at their choice) is a big advantage for working 4 hours on a Saturday. Yeah it sucks, but getting a 3 day weekend in exchange for 4 hours on Saturday, that’s known well in advance, is a pretty solid deal.

Do they know they can swap the day around? Getting a Monday off is nice on occasion, but a lot of things are also closed on Monday (many hair salons, golf courses, etc.).

As mentioned as well, perhaps you could discuss with one of your employees who enjoys the Saturday working if they want to make it full time. Perhaps they’d rather be off Sunday/Monday every week. Or swap a Wed for the Saturday, etc. You’d still need to find a backup for when that person can’t work, but at least it would be much less often.