Shift pay - exempt or non?

Leslie

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-29-03 AT 11:38AM (CST)[/font][p]I have three departments that pay supervisory personnel "shift pay." We treat their benefits like they are hourly. However, if their shift is for 8 hours and they work 9, they receive another quarter shift - essentially two hours.

If they work 6 8-hour shifts in a week, they make regular shift pay for the last shift.

Do we have the right to define how many hours are in a shift? The manager of the department wants to make their shift 8.5 hours. Would that make us liable for overtime? Or should we be anyway as described in the second paragraph?

I don't have any idea if these people are exempt or non-exempt. Anyone out there have experience with shift pay?

SandiF

You really need to determine whether these employees are exempt or non-exempt. If exempt, they get the same pay every week and are not paid overtime. If they are non-exempt employees, you have to pay overtime for hours worked over 40. (Some states require OT based on hours worked in a day; after 8 hours the emp gets OT). Make sure you classify these employees correctly; you can never get in trouble by paying OT, but if you mis-classify someone and don't pay it, there can be large penalties.