Salaried on Weekdays, Hourly on Weekends

Gracie

We have a receiving manager that is salaried and exempt. He would like to work on some Saturdays in this same function and be paid his hourly rate for the extra hours he work.

Would this be permissible under Wage and Hour laws?

If he were to work in a different capacity as a general worker during the weekend, can he be paid his hourly rate at regular pay and NOT overtime, though he works more than 80 hours?

Thank you for your advice. We are in the State of VA.

David Nagle VA

First, I am assuming that he is properly exempt. This means that management is his primary duty, and that he is paid on a legitimate salary basis (a fixed pre-determined amount that does not vary on the basis of quantity or quality of work).

I also assume that his proposal is that he will perform more of the exempt management-type work on Saturday. If, instead, he is talking about doing non-exempt work on Saturday (e.g., packing and shipping), then permitting this could undermine your claim that he is exempt.

As you know, an employer has no obligation to provide additional pay to exempt employees who work additional hours. If he is properly exempt, you can require the Saturday work, with no extra compensation. I understand that your question is whether it is unlawful to pay him something extra.

It is not unlawful, but it would be a bad idea to calculate the amount paid on "his hourly rate" because he is salaried -- he doesn't have an hourly rate. Starting to pay him on that basis for some hours may undermine your claim that he is exempt. Some employers in these circumstances elect to provide some extra payment, e.g., $50 or $100, in recognition of above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty Saturday work by exempt personnel who are not regularly called upon to work Saturdays. Hope that helps.

David E. Nagle
Editor, Virginia Employment Law Letter

moneyman

We had an exempt employee who wanted to take over the janitorial work. It was a small office and meant maybe 5 hours a week (after office hours and on weekends). This work was definitely outside the scope of her current position (RN), but we felt that it might jeopardize her exempt status by paying out the extra time as hourly.

We quote our salaries by an annual amount, but if people want another comparision, we give them an hourly rate based upon a 40 hour week. What we ended up doing for this employee is adjusting her salary to reflect a 45 hour weekly base pay. We felt that we protected the exempt status, and she performed the office cleaning, as she saw fit, in between and outside of her regular exempt duties.