Learned Professional Exemption

[RRevak]

Read my post above. I think we were posting at the same time.

I see we probably were posting together. But your above clarified where I was going with mine. I was just wondering if there existed the possibility of OP perhaps assisting the employee in the necessaries to obtain the "schooling" needed for the exemption but I see now that isn't even in the realm of possible.

 

[cbg]

Not for the learned professional, no. If they want to really increase the poster's responsibilities they might be able to justify an administrative exemption. I'm not certain that's the right answer, either, since giving her more work might also be seen as retaliatory.

I'd be interested to know what the employee wants to happen. Is it to be reclassified as non-exempt but keep the same money? Or to be given the responsibility that the exempt status implies? Obviously she is not interested in anything that would reduce her pay, but knowing what her ultimate goal is here would help sort out the poster's options.

 

[cricketthedog]

You MIGHT - underline might - be able to add sufficient duties to qualify her for the administrative exemption.

Seeing that the duties of setup, operating and cleaning equipment would be considered manual labor, the use of the administrative exemption probably would not work.

 

[cricketthedog]

I'd be interested to know what the employee wants to happen. Is it to be reclassified as non-exempt but keep the same money? Or to be given the responsibility that the exempt status implies? Obviously she is not interested in anything that would reduce her pay, but knowing what her ultimate goal is here would help sort out the poster's options.

Employee wants her salary converted to the equivalent hourly rate and changed to non-exempt so she can get paid for overtime when she works it.

 

[Zigner]

Seeing that the duties of setup, operating and cleaning equipment would be considered manual labor, the use of the administrative exemption probably would not work.

It would if you sufficiently changed the ratio of manual labor to administrative work. That's what was being stated above...

 

[Zigner]

Employee wants her salary converted to the equivalent hourly rate and changed to non-exempt so she can get paid for overtime when she works it.

That is what you will need to do.

ETA: You *could* keep her on salary and pay overtime for hours worked over 40...but we're talking semantics.

 

[cricketthedog]

What ever we do for her, will we have to do it for everyone else? We have approximately 15 employees in same situation as this woman. If so, will there be a problem with the big pay difference among all employees?

 

[Zigner]

What ever we do for her, will we have to do it for everyone else? We have approximately 15 employees in same situation as this woman. If so, will there be a problem with the big pay difference among all employees?

Yes, you are required to pay overtime to all non-exempt workers. It sounds to me like you've been screwing your workers for a long time...

 

[justalayman]

What ever we do for her, will we have to do it for everyone else? We have approximately 15 employees in same situation as this woman. If so, will there be a problem with the big pay difference among all employees?

do you mean to say you have around 15 employees that are improperly classified as exempt when it is blatantly obvious they aren't?



If so, I suggest somebody needs to be fired. All employers deal with this sort of thing. An honest mistake is one thing but a large scale abuse of the exempt status is going to be a really big problem.



time to get the check book out.

 

[LdiJ]

I am also going to throw out some info that might be relevant to you...

In my lifetime I have seen many employers lose senior employees due to their own foolishness about pay grades and other issues. What you really need to ask yourself here is how productive is this employee? Can you replace this employee with ONE lower paid employee, or is this the kind of employee that it would take two or three new ones to fill her shoes? Or if that isn't the case, is this an employee that currently can troubleshoot machinery issues that would otherwise cause you have down times and have to call in outside technicians?

If you can actually afford to lose her, then lowering her to the highest hourly rate for her position and then paying her overtime for overtime worked is less risky. It still clearly has risks, as have already been outlined, but its less risky. If you really cannot afford to lose her, then adjusting your pay grades or creating a new pay grade for her position, to take into consideration that she is the most senior employee, would be smarter from a business perspective.

Once upon a time, many moons ago when I was young, I worked for a very nationally recognizable company. My employee number was 77 so they obviously were not very big when I started there, but by the time I left, six years later, they had thousands of employees world wide...and are very big today. HR was always grousing about my pay, which was partial base salary and partial incentive. The most common lament from HR was that they could bring in somebody new to do my job at 1/2 of my pay. Several times my incentives were "adjusted" to bring me down to the level they thought I needed to be at, and every time, I exceeded goals sufficiently to bring my pay up rather than down. On top of that, I was doing half of my boss's job as well, without anyone realizing that. I wasn't the only employee like that, I was one of many
....and I wasn't the first one they lost...nor the last.

One of the reasons why I decided to leave was because I was more than a bit fed up with that. As it turned out, nobody they hired could do my job at my level, and it ended up with them having to hire three people to handle what I had handled...and led to my former supervisor getting demoted and then fired.

The point I am making here is not that I was anything special...because this employer had lots of employees like me. The point I am making is that employers with rigid rules about pay grades often lose sight of employees that they really need and cannot afford to lose, and lose them because of foolish rules. They also often end up paying less productive employees more money than they deserve, due to seniority and those same rigid rules.

So...you need to evaluate your rules in light of this employee, and probably others as well.

 

[cbg]

If there are other employees doing the same job who are also classified as exempt, damn right you have to reclassify them too. The DOL might forgive one mistake, but now that the mistake has been brought to your attention, you will be in SERIOUS trouble if you don't fix everyone else too. I'm talking BIG fines. Which means you really need to be re-evaluate your compensation system. I hope whoever set it up is no longer working there but if they are, fire them. Tomorrow. I mean that. They are clearly totally incompetent. I'm not even a comp person and I can see your company being THOROUGHLY taken to pieces by the DOL if she files a complaint and they decide to investigate.

I don't always agree with LdiJ but she is spot on the money - forgive the pun - with her post above.

 

[cricketthedog]

Our company is global, it has sites all around the world. A couple sites that do similar work as our site. Some things that I see upper management doing when they hear some grumblings about our pay practices are... Employees are reminded other sites are cheaper to operate (because cost of living is so much cheaper in those areas). It's seems like it is a scare tactic for them to keep quiet or their jobs may go else where. The more I get comments about this, I'm ashamed that I work for this employer.

 

[eerelations]

Remind upper management that offshoring these employees' work as a result of their legally-justified complaints about their pay is also illegal.

 

[TigerD]

Remind upper management that offshoring these employees' work as a result of their legally-justified complaints about their pay is also illegal.

Upper management that can't come up with a legally-justified reason for offshoring shouldn't be in upper management.

Increasing regulatory costs is a perfectly good reason.

TD

 

[eerelations]

Upper management that can't come up with a legally-justified reason for offshoring shouldn't be in upper management.

Increasing regulatory costs is a perfectly good reason.

TD

Most executives shouldn't be in upper management. Odds are the dodos OP works for will come up with something just like this and offshore the employees immediately after one of them complains...and guess what? The DOL will see through it, like they usually do.