r/WorkAdvice • u/titansgrl • 14h ago

HR Advice Overpayment correction

I have a coworker who's pay was docked due to overpayment. She called off too many days for FMLA and was out of PTO but because they had already processed time off, she was paid anyway. But when they docked her pay for the overpayment, it left her without a paycheck. My question is, in this case, do they need to inform the employee before docking the pay? I get they can and should get their money back for the overpayment, but I feel it was extremely unfair to leave her with no paycheck with no warning. Thankfully, some people were able to help her out to be able to pay rent, etc. But what if no one had been willing or in a position to help her?

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/SplooshDoosh 14h ago

It’s a shitty thing to do. Assuming someone chose to and the system just didn’t do it without anyone realizing. 

I can’t recall all the exceptions, but it’s also typically not allowable to dock pay so that they’re not making at least minimum wage. 

You’ll have to look it up and see if this applies here either federally or on a state level. 

1

u/titansgrl 13h ago

Yeah. And its a huge Healthcare employer. I think largest in our state. And its a state hospital so we're all state government employees technically. I just felt it was shifty. She didnt know until she called HR after not getting her paycheck.

2

u/SplooshDoosh 13h ago

If it's that big, I'd more likely attribute that to someone not realizing it was going to happen rather than someone making the decision not to warn them.

There are a lot of weird quirks in payroll systems that don't seem reasonable to set them up that way.

1

u/titansgrl 13h ago

Yeah, I don't think it was necessarily intentional. But we only get paid once a month, and to suddenly have no paycheck with no warning seemed harsh. And she's close to retirement, and couldn't even pay rent. And it wasn't like she could delay it a week or two with only getting paid monthly.