Change to Non-exempt

J9JC · October 2006

After long wrangling with the superviors who had previously insisted as classifing an employee as Salary , Exempt, I need to change this person to Non-Exempt, Hourly. The duties just don't qualify for Exempt. My question is how to do this with realtive smoothness and should I be concerned that the "re-classified" employee will then want OT for past time? How would you handle this?

NeedCoffee · October 2006

Does this employee have any significant change in job duties with the reclassification? At the AEIS in Chicago last week, someone actually posed this very question. The attorney suggested that if you can show a change in job duties, that's usually the easiest way to go. He suggested stating, "We at ABC Co. are always trying to look at our procedures and make sure we're in accordance with the law. Upon a recent review of your position, we realized that your job duties no longer classify you as exempt under federal guidelines." Other than that, try to just put a positive spin on it, i.e., "We're changing your job duties because we want to give you more time to do duty xyz." If all else fails, ask him to help you comply with DOL standards and worst case scenario, cough up the back pay. Good luck with this and I'd like to see how everything turns out!

J9JC · October 2006

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-09-06 AT 01:23PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Her job duties have changed since she is not capable of the full duties of her position. She is now only doing about 1/2 the position duties and they are certainly not exempt duties. Maybe the real question is, should we just pursue letting her go for lack of performance and ride out her exempt classification until we let her go? Her department has been working with her for quite some time to try to bring up her performace but it is just not happening.

The advice you gave is excellent! Thank you!

NeedCoffee · October 2006

If the change in duties corresponded with the change in exempt status, I would simply explain it as it is - you have a legitimate reason for changing her status, so she should have no real recourse against you. You may be setting up a nasty precedent if you don't change her exempt status in hopes of a termination. In any case, keep up the documentation trail and hopefully a performance based termination won't be far off.

System · October 2006

>Maybe
>the real question is, should we just pursue
>letting her go for lack of performance and ride
>out her exempt classification until we let her
>go?

Yep, this is the more important issue - is she earning her keep?

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

J9JC · October 2006

She is not earning her keep. Not at all, now she has emailed in sick on Monday, and is a no show so far today. So should I ride out her not showing, not contacting us, and send her a letter consider it job abandonment or should I just prepare her termination documents?

NeedCoffee · October 2006

I would write her up for violation of your attendance/call in sick policies and proceed under whatever progressive discipline level she falls under. Sometimes it's hard to be agressive about disciplining someone, because we all know it's not fun, but I think you're going to have to get a little dirty with this one! Good luck!

J9JC · October 2006

She has had two other write ups and probation periods for over use of sick time and time off without pay. Supervisors want her gone, and so do I. She recently got off probation and that seems to be the pattern. She improves attendance issues until off probation, but this is not a game. This is the first time she has not made contact. She needs to go for the attendace and performance issues. You really think I need to do more progressive disciplining rather than just show her the door?

NeedCoffee · October 2006

Depends - we have a three strike rule, so according to our progressive discipline policy, she's be out. If you don't have such a policy in place, I would look at other termination decision you have made, and follow suit. You don't want to be accused of treating her case and her discipline differently than another employee. It sounds like you have enough history and documentation, so I'd probably listen to what your gut is telling you.

J9JC · October 2006

We don't have a 3 strikes rule, we are a small company and when people are out it hurts us. We can deal with normal stuff but abuse is not something we like to tolerate. We have given her the same as any other person. Most that we have to discipline over time off issues usually never make it through their probation, so no one has ever been in her shoes.

System · October 2006

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-10-06 AT 12:20PM (CST)[/font][br][br]So, she has had attendance problems in the past which resulted in previous disciplinary action/suspension, she still has performance issues, she emails you that she is sick (instead of calling) and no shows the following day.
I guess my question is why would you even consider keeping her around after displaying such total disregard for her job...???

E Wart · October 2006

One thing you may want to consider is when you remove her from warning/probation, to add to the removal letter that "you are pleased that you are able to remove her from the disciplinary process (warning/probation.) However, if her unacceptable behavior becomes a problem in the future, she may not be granted another (warning/probation) period and could immediately go to the next step, which is ..(probation/termination.) Obviously if she is ok for the next 5 years you would probably go back through the process. however, if she lasts only 3 weeks after she is removed, you don't have to start over.
Just a suggestion. However, sounds as if she might be "quiting" but doing it so you have to fire her.
E Wart

System · October 2006

Certainly an important issue in all this is her length of service and how much of that time has been in relatively good stanfding. However, that being said, why should the company continue to put up with a pattern of unacceptable attendance, on top of job performance that is so poor that they are considering taking half of her responsibilities away just to consider a non-exempt classification? Furthermore, she has displayed no concern for her job and coninues to exhibit little to no willingness to try to improve the situation. I think that HR often tries to "overprotect" itself, instead of going through with an obvious need to terminate, based on justifiable reasons and well documented dicsiplinary actions, which the company has at this point. Stop coddling her and quit trying to salvage an employment relationship that is of little to no benfefit to the company. The decsion at this point (based on the facts presented) should be to terminate her, which in turn, sends the appropriate messgae to the rest of the workforce that says the company is not going to tolerate these kinds of games when employees show such unacceptable performance patterns AND half-hearted attempts to improve AND little concern for their job.

joycel · October 2006

I agree - she's playing a game and she's calling the shots. Our attorney has always advised us to stay away from probationary timeframes for just this reason: an employee will behave during the probationary period and then go back to his/her old ways. That's what she's done. Instead we use our attorney-provided statement: we expect to see immediate and sustained improvement. There's no end to that expectation so when the very next time that person slips up s/he is subject to the appropriate consequences. It's worked for us!

Change to Non-exempt

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