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Compensation & Benefits

Make Full-Day Deductions, Not Partial, for Exempt Staff

06/01/2004

Q. If an exempt employee uses all her sick time and vacation time, then takes a half day off for personal reasons, can I deduct for that half day, or does it have to be a whole day? Has that changed under the new law? —Barbara, Louisiana

Tell sick employees to stay home

06/01/2004
The sluggish economy of recent years has helped encourage more employees to show up at work, even while they’re sick. Nearly 77 percent of employees say they’ve shown up to …

Commissions count in tallying highly compensated exemption

06/01/2004

Q. I have a question about the new highly compensated exemption. I have inside salespeople and their base salary is about $40,000, but their commissions net them over $130,000 a year. Could I classify them as exempt? —Michelle, California

Give employees advance notice of pay changes

06/01/2004
Issue: Should you provide notice about commission-formula changes that could alter employees’ pay? Risk: If you rework pay formulas behind employees’ backs, you could bump up against state wage laws. …

Payroll managers typically fall in nonexempt class

06/01/2004

Q. We have a payroll manager who handles our payroll and FMLA policies. In our last audit, we were told that because her primary duty is payroll, she did not fall under the administrative exemption. Is that true? —Juliette, Florida

New OT rules: countdown to compliance

06/01/2004
The long wait is over. Now it’s time for you to act.
More than a year after proposing changes to the rules that define which employees are eligible for overtime …

Passing the ‘duties test’: new exemption definitions

06/01/2004
Under the new overtime rules, white-collar employees who earn less than $455 per week ($23,660 annually) are automatically eligible for overtime. Those who earn more than $100,000 and perform just one …

Four-Year degree won’t automatically earn exemption

06/01/2004

Q. Regarding the “learned professional” exemption, is it safe to say that a person with a four-year degree would be considered in that category, but a person with an associate’s or two-year degree would not? —Marilyn, Pennsylvania

New exemption definitions aren’t retroactive

06/01/2004

Q. If, according to the revised Labor Department regulations, we’ve been improperly classifying certain employees, would we need to go back and reimburse them? At that time, we thought they were properly classified. —Becky, Texas

Look at big picture to determine ‘Primary Duty’

06/01/2004

Q. The duties test under the Labor Department’s overtime regulations talks about determining the employee’s “primary duty.” How do we determine that? —Marie, Pennsylvania