EXTRA PAY FOR A SALARIED MANAGER

solesen

I need some guidance on this issue from our esteemed colleagues. A salaried department manager came to me and asked if she could perform work for another department in the same company and be paid for her labor in the second department in addition to her salary from the first department. She is going through some financial distress and needs extra cash. Are there any restrictions on this; i.e. does she lose her exempt status? Are there any other considerations that I need to be aware of.

Gillian3

I think that it is no, no and yes, in order of your questions. There is nothing more than good common sense pertaining to compensation in deciding what to pay exempt employees and if you want to give them a raise you can. The reason stated though, needs some thought. Are the extra duties hourly and will the person work more in that capacity than in the exempt position. If so, you would have a problem with exempt status. The other issue is the reason - are you willing to help others who are in financial difficulty in this manner and if not, how will you explain why it is OK in this instance but not the next one?

Crout

AS Gillian said, it CAN be done, but it so fraught with complications that we've found the best and safest thing is to just say no. She can get an extra job on the weekends if she needs extra cash. If she were non-exempt and wanted to pick up a few extra hours here and there it would be a different story.

solesen

In response to Gillian, the extra duties are non-managerial and she will work fewer hours in the supplemental job than in her management position (about 45-50 hours in first managerial job and 6-10 hours in the second non-managerial job).
My understanding of the wage and hours law is that once you start paying an exempt person on an hourly basis, they have lost that exempt status and would have to be paid hourly for all hours and if she exceeded 40 hrs in the work week, then she be entitled to overtime pay at time and one-half.

Pork

10 hours of work for $6.00 per hour for physical work is $60.00 a week. Give the lady a $60.00 a week increase and save the good manager. Then tell the manager of the other department, when ever she needs to bring Suezy Q some work on extra problems to do so. Let these two managers work out the details of what work to be performed when it is to be completed, at what standard, which will help the other department out.

I believe 20 % of physical work by a manager is the threshold for consideration of lost of exempt status. If there is no formal time keeper involved, then there is no determination of the percent of time used. If you or someone keeps record and can prove the time spent on physical labor is greater than 20% of the total time worked you will have an issue. In a 50 hour work week 10 hours is 20%, therefore, the time worked even officially does not exceed the 20% threshold and the considered loss of EXEMPT status. Overtime pay is not required and loss of EXEMT status to get an organizations work accomplished is not an issue. Our accounting manager is capable, has time, and does accounting functions that are assigned to NON_EXEMPT employees, almost daily. She does this to keep her department cost down. She does not want to hire a third person as a part-time to do mundane & physically demanding just to keep everything organized and working smoothly, things like "filing" accounting documents. She does not keep record of time spent she just does it to make sure her team is not overly worked when short handed.

PORK