can our company make us work rigid hours and explain any gaps?

A reader writes:

My company has steadily tightened remote work over the past year from two days remote allowed, to five days in-office with exceptions, to now: mandatory in-office five days a week, eight hours a day minimum, no remote option at all. Any time away from the office requires PTO, sick leave, or caregiver leave. They’re tracking badge swipes and laptop network connection time. Our SVP has said explicitly that “90% compliance is unacceptable.”

Here’s what’s making people angry: we’re all non-supervisory exempt salaried employees. Our work routinely requires long hours during crunch periods. In the past, we could flex those hours. Now if you work 10 hours Thursday to hit a deadline, you’re still required to be in the office a full eight hours Friday. Every two weeks I’m expected to review my hours report with my supervisor and explain any gaps, including detailed explanations of illness or doctor’s visits. We log this in four different systems.

A lot of colleagues are talking about legal action. I’m skeptical, but I’m curious: are there any actual legal issues with requiring exempt employees to work unpaid overtime this way, or with demanding medical explanations for sick time? And is there anything employees can reasonably push back on here, or is this a “update your resume” situation?

Legally, employers can require exempt employees to work whatever hours they want, including what they’re requiring of you (a full eight hours in the office every day, even if you worked 12 hours the day before). The law on exempt workers really only makes you exempt from overtime pay (that’s literally what “exempt” refers to); as long as you qualify to be treated as exempt in the first place, that’s all the law cares about.

Do you qualify to be treated as exempt in the first place? You might not. It’s not uncommon for employers to classify employees as exempt even when they don’t meet the legal requirements for it (which include both a minimum salary and a duties test). So look at that first — because if your job doesn’t actually meet those requirements, then they owe you overtime for all hours over 40 that you work in a week, plus back pay for all the time when they weren’t doing that.

But if you’re correctly classified as exempt, they can require those hours.

The part about demanding explanations for sick leave: maybe, maybe not. It depends on exactly what they’re asking. In general, employers are allowed to ask about why you need sick leave. However, if the reason for your absence is a medical condition that’s protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), they’re not allowed to ask you for information beyond questions that are “job-related and consistent with business necessity.” So, for example, if you explained that you were out sick because you were getting dialysis (covered under the ADA), your boss can’t ask a bunch of follow-up questions. But if you were out with food poisoning, that’s not covered under the ADA and legally your boss could nose around into the details of your symptoms if they wanted to. They still shouldn’t, because it’s none of their business and there’s no need for them to know exactly how many times you threw up and whether you also had diarrhea, but legally they could ask.

However, the law aside, you and your coworkers can still push back on this. You can point out as a group that if they want you to work extra hours during busy periods, they need to offer you some equivalent flexibility on their side. (“Need to” doesn’t mean “legally need to,” just “if you want to be a decent employer that retains good employees.”) You can point out that people will be less likely to stay late if they know they won’t get any credit for doing that in terms of their hours the rest of the week, and that people will burn out and not perform as well if they don’t have enough time away from work to recharge. You could also point out that, especially with the scrutiny of any “gaps” for doctor’s appointments, etc., they’re treating you more like non-exempt employees than exempt employees under the spirit of the law (although they may not care since they’re still following the letter of the law), and that people who are treated like trusted professionals are more likely to remain engaged and committed.

Will they care? Maybe. Maybe not. But you can certainly push back on all these things as a group. (And for what it’s worth, one step past pushing back as a group is unionizing.)

If they won’t budge, then yes, this is an “update your resume” situation.

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