Piece Work?

mwild31

Our computer programmer is out with an illness. It may be long term, or it could be over next week - we just don't know. This person is really good at their job & his absence is really missed (read: a lot of programming is getting backed up & it's slowing down company progress). The answer is not to let him go or hire someone else - it just won't happen. One of the possible solutions that's being tossed about is having him do work at home on a piece work basis. I'm concerned that he's doing the same work we would normally pay him for at his regular hourly rate & we might have problems with FLSA - on the other side, his manager is stating that because he is working from home & can rest when he needs to, it would be hard to quantify the hours he worked as productive & efficient. Can we do piecework in this situation? It would resemble:

Project needed: Update Console
Hours to complete: 24
Pay: hourly rate x 24 hours

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!