Are Your Controls In Place
It’s January 2020 – Have your exempt (salaried) employees been reclassified to non-exempt (hourly)? Have you put controls in place to manage this change?
1) Punching In/Out – It’s a new concept for salaried employees to track their time. If your salaried employees have been reclassified to hourly to comply with the new law, these employees are now eligible for overtime if they work over 40 hours in one workweek.
2) Morale – If employees don’t know why their status is changing, (especially true for Managers) morale may become an issue. They should be told of the law change, and depending upon the state you work in, how this change impacts their daily work, it’s certainly not a demotion!
3) Hours Worked Per Day – It may not have been a problem for salaried employees to work a little extra each day to complete a project. Non-Exempt Managers will need training or direction from you to better manage their time – or work overtime and increase your labor expense! You may need to rethink the workload and redistribute it if necessary.
4) Working After Hours / Off the Clock Work – This could be a problem if your newly classified hourly employees are used to working off the clock or at home. These employees are considered working if they are answering emails, work-related texts, or working off their laptop on a project after hours. They can’t do that anymore, unless you are willing to pay them the extra bucks to get it done.
5) Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks – Depending upon the state you’re in, hourly employees have hard and fast laws that must be followed concerning breaks. Here’s a training opportunity for you, to ensure the newly classified employees understand and are following these laws!
6) Travel Time – Traveling to/from multiple worksites is compensable, so be sure employees are aware that their travel time cannot include personal stops that may have been allowed previously. Those hours are now considered work time and inclusive of their overtime-sensitive workweek.
7) Benefits you provide that are tiered using exempt vs non-exempt status may need to be reconsidered, as the FLSA law change should not impact existing benefits or paid time-off accruals. Ensure that the newly classified employees don’t lose out on their existing benefits! What controls have you put into place? Non-exempt employees working beyond their 40 hours per week must be paid overtime – you cannot avoid it. However, you can control work practices and use company policies to manage employee behavior and performance. Clear communication is key! Ensure you have policies in place that require approval of overtime before it is incurred. How about a policy to control punching in and out each day? Failure to follow established policies should result in disciplinary measures. These policies and others are used when managing working time throughout the company. They are huge. Call CEOHR, Inc. now for a review of your existing policies and benefit structure to ensure your company has the controls in place to manage your employees’ work habits while maintaining federal and state compliance. Our knowledgeable employees are ready to help today! Call the Human Resource team at (941) 907-4520 ext. 108 or email us at hr@ceopeo.com
Cindy Laviolette, PHR, SHRM-CP, HRBP is Vice President of Human Resources for CEOHR, Inc.
