Benefits of being exempt
MS HR
186 Posts
Does anyone have a good concise statement to tell employees who are now classified as exempt under the new standards and will lose overtime as to what the benefits of being exempt are (other than the obvious no deduction from salary except for certain circumstances.)???
Comments
I will for this thread click my gong to read the following!
See you Monday, I am out of here!
PORK
To your general question, I would include the explanation that being exempt means the position is not subject to various provisions of the FLSA - tracking hours for pay purposes. Instead, employees are now paid a fixed, set salary per work regardless of the actual hours worked. Here is some verbiage from dol.gov:
"Being paid on a “salary basis” means an employee regularly receives a predetermined amount of compensation each pay period on a weekly, or less frequent, basis. The predetermined amount cannot be reduced because of variations in the quality or quantity of the employee’s work. Subject to exceptions listed below, an exempt employee must receive the full salary for any week in which the employee performs any work, regardless of the number of days or hours worked."
I would be careful about trying to say that an exempt employee could work 6 hours each day and still get paid for full 8 hours, because you could get into some performance issues and resultant discipline.
As I type all of this, I guess what I'm really trying to say (though not very well! 8-| ) is I wouldn't try to "sell" this change. Instead, I would explain what it means to be exempt without a lot of hoopla. You could end up making it seem worse if they think you're trying to sell something that each person may not perceive as a great thing.
As a side note - I may have one or two exempt positions that need to be changed to non-exempt and am concerned about potential negative reaction because of perceived "status" associated with exempt positions. If it's not one thing, it's another!x:7
In my current position - as an HR director for a company of 110 employees (manufacturing and sales company) I acutally make less than the hourly workers who cut sheet metal and install our products - as they make a lower hourly wage - but get paid OT every single week - to the tune of thousands of dollars a year that I will never see. I am salaried and exempt - and also must must punch a clock to make sure I work at least 40 hours a week - required.
So there are no benefits to being exempt. I am unclear why there are any exempt positions - as those benefits dried up a long time ago. There is no such thing as lunch on the clock - it is off the clock and sometimes not all. If you go to the doctor it is off the clock - you are paid - but also made to feel like you've done something wrong by leaving during the day.
an employer can require clock punching as a matter of documenting that an employee did any work that day.
the only prohibition is docking from pay.
you can dock from accrued leave.
just don't dock from pay. (and even then in certain circumstances it is ok.)
If you are required to "punch a clock..." as an Exempt employee...your exempt status has just been nullified unless the company can show significant reasons for this requirement.
Review the standards.
With that said, this is not unusual in small or closed corporations.
On the other hand hourly employees are free to abuse the time clock as much as they possibly can. They drag out daily tasks they should be able to accomplish in the course of a day, so they are sure to have overtime at the end of the week. They order lunch in and eat at their desk without punching out. They play the game at the beginning of the day and the end of the day and milk the clock to the tune of several hours of overtime a pay period. We have caught people who have punched out on their lunch break - stayed an hour, clocked back in and then gone to the break room to eat lunch. These are just a few of the ways that abuse of time costs employers thousands of dollars a year.
My exempt status has meant a lot to me, including being exempt from: watching the clock; mundane, repetitive work; many of the rules which govern hourly employees' lives; a supervisor looking over my shoulder all the time; most exposure to on the job injuries; being tied to a machine or work station, etc, etc.
It means having responsibility for making decisions, using my brain, being involved in the well-being of my organization, making a profit when I was in the private sector. If you cannot appreciate these advantages, then you probably shouldn't be in an exempt position.
OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.