The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: rubybeth on September 27, 2016, 12:26:16 PM
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I am curious if the changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act are affecting any other MMM readers.
The changes as outlined by the Dept. of Labor: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/overtime-factsheet.htm
And a helpful video/summary: https://www.dol.gov/featured/overtime
Basically, the income requirement is going way up for exempt workers, meaning employers are going to have to pay their exempt workers a minimum of $47,476, or make them hourly and eligible for overtime.
I'll go first:
My job is currently full time, non-exempt. I meet the income test of making more than $47,476, but am in a salary range with others making less than that amount due to years of experience. So my employer did a time study and found that it just made more sense to make most of us in the salary range exempt, and move us all up to a higher salary range where the minimum salary for starting will be $47,476. This is good for the two people in my range who will now get raises, and it will save the complication of overtime. It also moves the upper end of my salary range, which will be good as I am over the midpoint.
However, I am a bit nervous about how this may affect my DH's job. He was just hired in May, and is currently exempt (from overtime), but makes around $40k. I can't really see how his position could be made hourly, since he frequently works 45-50 hours/week. His employer also did a time study, but we haven't heard any further details.
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Following. There is a lot of confusion about this..
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For your DH's job, one of 3 things will happen. They will give him a raise to the FLSA minimum to be exempt, they will pay him overtime for his 5-10 extra hours per week, they will cap his hours at 40 and expect him to get all the work done in that time. All three are generally good things. The latter may be impossible-ish but at least he would be working less for the same pay. Are you worried that they will just eliminate positions entirely rather than comply with the law? If they have enough work for him to do 45-50 hours/week it is unlikely that they would just eliminate the position. Most companies are doing raises to the FLSA minimum rather than making people hourly.
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I'm already exempt and over the limit. DH is already hourly and eligible for overtime, but never works more than 40 hours a week. So I don't think either of us will be affected by this. (But I didn't actually read your links, just surmised the from your summary and personal situation details...)
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The latter may be impossible-ish but at least he would be working less for the same pay. Are you worried that they will just eliminate positions entirely rather than comply with the law? If they have enough work for him to do 45-50 hours/week it is unlikely that they would just eliminate the position. Most companies are doing raises to the FLSA minimum rather than making people hourly.
Yes. I'm concerned about all of the above. I could see them having people "only work 40 hours" but there's no way the work can be completed in that time; nobody doing his job can do it in 40 hours. And he's not the only one affected; there are probably at least 10 people working for his organization who aren't making that minimum but are salaried/exempt currently. I could see them eliminating positions to make up the difference. :/
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I will be moving from exempt to hourly, and it is not going to be good. I currently travel to several offices, check email on my phone routinely during non-work hours, and often need to take work home. This company has a very restrictive system for hourly employees in general, and I have no idea how our role can fit into it and still be effective. Getting a pay bump has been nixed. They have also told us that they will be taking all of our sick time hours away and we will have to start from scratch. I have a lot of time built up because I have young children at home and try to save it for when they get sick so I will basically be punished for this. Guess who is taking a sick day tomorrow?
I did have a second interview today for an awesome organization so fingers crossed I'm gone before December.
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Well, this is awkward because I am affected by this, but nobody has made any mention of it to me. My salary would either need to increase by about $2.5k or they would need to make me hourly, which I would not want. I am also leaving for maternity leave on Dec. 3, so I can see this being a very interesting conversation with our HR manager.
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My husband's salary was increased by $3000 to just go over the requirement. I'm more interested to see what they do with grad students.
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Well, this is awkward because I am affected by this, but nobody has made any mention of it to me. My salary would either need to increase by about $2.5k or they would need to make me hourly, which I would not want. I am also leaving for maternity leave on Dec. 3, so I can see this being a very interesting conversation with our HR manager.
I attended a webinar for employers about this change. They are advising employers to do your research and make any changes in November. This has come up pretty quickly. Your employer may be trying to make sense of it all still. Personally, I find it very confusing..
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Well, this is awkward because I am affected by this, but nobody has made any mention of it to me. My salary would either need to increase by about $2.5k or they would need to make me hourly, which I would not want. I am also leaving for maternity leave on Dec. 3, so I can see this being a very interesting conversation with our HR manager.
I attended a webinar for employers about this change. They are advising employers to do your research and make any changes in November. This has come up pretty quickly. Your employer may be trying to make sense of it all still. Personally, I find it very confusing..
What do you find confusing about it? Someone making $24,000 is not making a professional wage, so they increased that floor to over $47,000.
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The compliance aspects are what get me a bit confused. This shouldn't affect my workplace but it seems we will have to make changes to prove that fact. It seems like there are good intentions but this is just more regulations in many ways.
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My husband's salary was increased by $3000 to just go over the requirement. I'm more interested to see what they do with grad students.
Grad students are students, not employees, and even if they teach as part of a fellowship, they would not be affected by the rule change, according to this (and neither are teachers): https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/highered-guidance.pdf
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I will be moving from exempt to hourly, and it is not going to be good. I currently travel to several offices, check email on my phone routinely during non-work hours, and often need to take work home. This company has a very restrictive system for hourly employees in general, and I have no idea how our role can fit into it and still be effective. Getting a pay bump has been nixed. They have also told us that they will be taking all of our sick time hours away and we will have to start from scratch. I have a lot of time built up because I have young children at home and try to save it for when they get sick so I will basically be punished for this. Guess who is taking a sick day tomorrow?
I did have a second interview today for an awesome organization so fingers crossed I'm gone before December.
Are they paying you for the hours your losing? They can't just cancel sick time you've already earned. I guess they could change carryover rules, but that seems unnecessarily antagonistic.
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I will be moving from exempt to hourly, and it is not going to be good. I currently travel to several offices, check email on my phone routinely during non-work hours, and often need to take work home. This company has a very restrictive system for hourly employees in general, and I have no idea how our role can fit into it and still be effective. Getting a pay bump has been nixed. They have also told us that they will be taking all of our sick time hours away and we will have to start from scratch. I have a lot of time built up because I have young children at home and try to save it for when they get sick so I will basically be punished for this. Guess who is taking a sick day tomorrow?
I did have a second interview today for an awesome organization so fingers crossed I'm gone before December.
Are they paying you for the hours your losing? They can't just cancel sick time you've already earned. I guess they could change carryover rules, but that seems unnecessarily antagonistic.
They have already done it to another group of employees so yes, that is the exact plan. It is absolutely ridiculous. The Dept. Of Labor has done nothing to help that group at this point. My department is next. I can't file a grievance until it actually happens to me. My plan is to just get out of there before then.
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They have already done it to another group of employees so yes, that is the exact plan. It isabsoluterly ridiculous. The Dept. Of Labor has done nothing to help that group at this point. My department is next. I can't file a grievance until it actually happens to me. My plan is to just get out of there before then.
Call my pollyanna, but I'll never understand why companies do this kind of stuff. The lost productivity and turnover because your employees hate you has to be more than the money you're saving by being a dick.
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My husband's salary was increased by $3000 to just go over the requirement. I'm more interested to see what they do with grad students.
Grad students are students, not employees, and even if they teach as part of a fellowship, they would not be affected by the rule change, according to this (and neither are teachers): https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/highered-guidance.pdf
See the last NLRB ruling, they are BOTH students and employees if they do research. And the reason their salaries were moved to $24,000 was to make them salaried overtime exempt, so yes they are affected.
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Well, this is awkward because I am affected by this, but nobody has made any mention of it to me. My salary would either need to increase by about $2.5k or they would need to make me hourly, which I would not want. I am also leaving for maternity leave on Dec. 3, so I can see this being a very interesting conversation with our HR manager.
Just to clear up a common misconception exempt does not equal salary and non-exempt does not equal hourly. One can be salaried and non-exempt or exempt and hourly too though it is not common. If you are salaried non-exempt they have to pay overtime despite you being salaried.
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Not affecting me personally but as a person who occasionally wears an HR hat I am dealing with this for a few of our employees.
We're dealing with it on a case by case basis. Most of our entry-level folks make under the threshold. Where we run into issues is travel time and training time. We have a lot of off-site projects. We usually send an experienced person/entry level person team to help the train the entry level folks. More than one off-site project a week usually puts you over 40 hours, but the entry level folks don't generally add-value until 18 months in or so (at which point they get raises). We're re-thinking how we train our new folks and we haven't come up with a solution yet. We'll probably switch them to hourly and limit the training time.
The biggest issue we're running into is that we have two employees that have married each other and have volunteered to do a major 6 month off-site project together. The project will require a minimum of 10 hour days for months. The senior employee will only do it if his wife can go with him and she is our worst entry level employee and doesn't come close to making the threshold. I'm looking into the legality of bumping up her salary for the duration of the off-site project and then switching her to hourly at her older rate (with a 40 hour minimum) after the end of the project.
I think the changes to FLSA are generally necessary and good (especially for the creative class) but they are a pain in my butt right now :)
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Not affecting me personally but as a person who occasionally wears an HR hat I am dealing with this for a few of our employees.
We're dealing with it on a case by case basis. Most of our entry-level folks make under the threshold. Where we run into issues is travel time and training time. We have a lot of off-site projects. We usually send an experienced person/entry level person team to help the train the entry level folks. More than one off-site project a week usually puts you over 40 hours, but the entry level folks don't generally add-value until 18 months in or so (at which point they get raises). We're re-thinking how we train our new folks and we haven't come up with a solution yet. We'll probably switch them to hourly and limit the training time.
The biggest issue we're running into is that we have two employees that have married each other and have volunteered to do a major 6 month off-site project together. The project will require a minimum of 10 hour days for months. The senior employee will only do it if his wife can go with him and she is our worst entry level employee and doesn't come close to making the threshold. I'm looking into the legality of bumping up her salary for the duration of the off-site project and then switching her to hourly at her older rate (with a 40 hour minimum) after the end of the project.
I think the changes to FLSA are generally necessary and good (especially for the creative class) but they are a pain in my butt right now :)
So I was curious about this and asked my mom who was a labor rep her opinion, she said that the only way to be legally covered is if the job description is sufficiently different to allow for the change. So if she did the same work at the job site and at the home department you could run into some issue. Take that for what it is worth.
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My husband's salary was increased by $3000 to just go over the requirement. I'm more interested to see what they do with grad students.
Grad students are students, not employees, and even if they teach as part of a fellowship, they would not be affected by the rule change, according to this (and neither are teachers): https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/highered-guidance.pdf
See the last NLRB ruling, they are BOTH students and employees if they do research. And the reason their salaries were moved to $24,000 was to make them salaried overtime exempt, so yes they are affected.
That may be true with the NLRB ruling, however, the document I linked to says this:
"D. Students
As a general matter, most students who work for their
college or university are hourly workers who do not work
more than 40 hours per week. The Final Rule will not affect
these students. Students receiving a salary as graduate
teaching assistants or research assistants, and many
residential assistants will also not be affected by the Final
Rule, even if they work more than 40 hours per week and
are paid less than the new salary level.
i. Graduate Teaching Assistants
Graduate teaching assistants who have teaching as their
primary duty are not subject to the salary tests and,
therefore, remain exempt under the Final Rule.
ii. Research Assistants
Generally, the Department views graduate and
undergraduate students who are engaged in research
under a faculty member’s supervision in the course
of obtaining a degree as being in an educational
relationship with the school. As such, the Department
would not assert an employment relationship with
either the school or any grantor funding the research.
Thus, in these situations, the Department will not assert
8. Guidance for Higher Education Institutions on Paying Overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act
that such workers are entitled to overtime. This is true
even though the student may receive a stipend for
performing the research. WHD Opinion Letter 1994 WL
1004845 (June 28, 1994). "
If this will affect you, I suggest talking to your HR department or whatever department handles your employment at the university. If you disagree with their assessment, I would take the advice in this answer from the FAQ:
Q. For graduate students who are doing pre-degree internships or practicum level training in health professions (doing clinical training under supervision not necessarily research in setting like the college counseling center, university medical center or a community mental health center) and receive a stipend, is the unpaid internship fact sheet (71) applicable or are they considered "learned professionals" as outlined in fact sheet (17D)? Is there another provision that includes student trainees who are not medical residents or interns?
A. We do not have enough information to give you a definite answer, but you may want to review the regulations governing "learned professionals" under 29 CFR 541.301. Please note that learned professionals will be subject to the new standard salary level ($913 per week) when it takes effect on December 1, 2016. If you have further questions, we encourage you to reach out to your nearest Wage and Hour Division district office, which you can find here: https://www.dol.gov/whd/america2.htm.
From here: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/webinarfaq.htm
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My husband's salary was increased by $3000 to just go over the requirement. I'm more interested to see what they do with grad students.
Grad students are students, not employees, and even if they teach as part of a fellowship, they would not be affected by the rule change, according to this (and neither are teachers): https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/highered-guidance.pdf
See the last NLRB ruling, they are BOTH students and employees if they do research. And the reason their salaries were moved to $24,000 was to make them salaried overtime exempt, so yes they are affected.
That may be true with the NLRB ruling, however, the document I linked to says this:
"D. Students
As a general matter, most students who work for their
college or university are hourly workers who do not work
more than 40 hours per week. The Final Rule will not affect
these students. Students receiving a salary as graduate
teaching assistants or research assistants, and many
residential assistants will also not be affected by the Final
Rule, even if they work more than 40 hours per week and
are paid less than the new salary level.
i. Graduate Teaching Assistants
Graduate teaching assistants who have teaching as their
primary duty are not subject to the salary tests and,
therefore, remain exempt under the Final Rule.
ii. Research Assistants
Generally, the Department views graduate and
undergraduate students who are engaged in research
under a faculty member’s supervision in the course
of obtaining a degree as being in an educational
relationship with the school. As such, the Department
would not assert an employment relationship with
either the school or any grantor funding the research.
Thus, in these situations, the Department will not assert
8. Guidance for Higher Education Institutions on Paying Overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act
that such workers are entitled to overtime. This is true
even though the student may receive a stipend for
performing the research. WHD Opinion Letter 1994 WL
1004845 (June 28, 1994). "
If this will affect you, I suggest talking to your HR department or whatever department handles your employment at the university. If you disagree with their assessment, I would take the advice in this answer from the FAQ:
Q. For graduate students who are doing pre-degree internships or practicum level training in health professions (doing clinical training under supervision not necessarily research in setting like the college counseling center, university medical center or a community mental health center) and receive a stipend, is the unpaid internship fact sheet (71) applicable or are they considered "learned professionals" as outlined in fact sheet (17D)? Is there another provision that includes student trainees who are not medical residents or interns?
A. We do not have enough information to give you a definite answer, but you may want to review the regulations governing "learned professionals" under 29 CFR 541.301. Please note that learned professionals will be subject to the new standard salary level ($913 per week) when it takes effect on December 1, 2016. If you have further questions, we encourage you to reach out to your nearest Wage and Hour Division district office, which you can find here: https://www.dol.gov/whd/america2.htm.
From here: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/webinarfaq.htm
Except that now the department DOES assert an employment relationship because of the NLRB ruling. It did not when that paperwork was done, but they do now.
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Except that now the department DOES assert an employment relationship because of the NLRB ruling. It did not when that paperwork was done, but they do now.
Okay, then it sounds like you'll just have to wait and see like what we're doing for my husband's job. :) I would guess they would just make grad students non-exempt and pay the overtime when it makes sense to do so.
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Not affecting me personally but as a person who occasionally wears an HR hat I am dealing with this for a few of our employees.
We're dealing with it on a case by case basis. Most of our entry-level folks make under the threshold. Where we run into issues is travel time and training time. We have a lot of off-site projects. We usually send an experienced person/entry level person team to help the train the entry level folks. More than one off-site project a week usually puts you over 40 hours, but the entry level folks don't generally add-value until 18 months in or so (at which point they get raises). We're re-thinking how we train our new folks and we haven't come up with a solution yet. We'll probably switch them to hourly and limit the training time.
The biggest issue we're running into is that we have two employees that have married each other and have volunteered to do a major 6 month off-site project together. The project will require a minimum of 10 hour days for months. The senior employee will only do it if his wife can go with him and she is our worst entry level employee and doesn't come close to making the threshold. I'm looking into the legality of bumping up her salary for the duration of the off-site project and then switching her to hourly at her older rate (with a 40 hour minimum) after the end of the project.
I think the changes to FLSA are generally necessary and good (especially for the creative class) but they are a pain in my butt right now :)
So I was curious about this and asked my mom who was a labor rep her opinion, she said that the only way to be legally covered is if the job description is sufficiently different to allow for the change. So if she did the same work at the job site and at the home department you could run into some issue. Take that for what it is worth.
Thanks for this! I might actually have some wiggle room then. The off-site project is not for her department and we actually know that we'll have to send extra people sometimes to do work that she is not capable of doing. If she was not married to the site manager she would never be assigned to this project. The site manager knows it too and has said he is willing to work extra to "cover" her but they are newly weds and don't want to be apart for 6 months (which is totally understandable) but he REALLY wants to do this project - it is a super cool project with a lot of cachet, and has a fantastic per diem in a fun location. We'll also have to end up paying some of our other people overtime to cover the work in her department.
None of this would have caused us any headache before the new FLSA updates. Everybody would have just gotten bonuses and been happy :) ahh well - the letter of the law is important.
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Not affecting me personally but as a person who occasionally wears an HR hat I am dealing with this for a few of our employees.
We're dealing with it on a case by case basis. Most of our entry-level folks make under the threshold. Where we run into issues is travel time and training time. We have a lot of off-site projects. We usually send an experienced person/entry level person team to help the train the entry level folks. More than one off-site project a week usually puts you over 40 hours, but the entry level folks don't generally add-value until 18 months in or so (at which point they get raises). We're re-thinking how we train our new folks and we haven't come up with a solution yet. We'll probably switch them to hourly and limit the training time.
The biggest issue we're running into is that we have two employees that have married each other and have volunteered to do a major 6 month off-site project together. The project will require a minimum of 10 hour days for months. The senior employee will only do it if his wife can go with him and she is our worst entry level employee and doesn't come close to making the threshold. I'm looking into the legality of bumping up her salary for the duration of the off-site project and then switching her to hourly at her older rate (with a 40 hour minimum) after the end of the project.
I think the changes to FLSA are generally necessary and good (especially for the creative class) but they are a pain in my butt right now :)
So I was curious about this and asked my mom who was a labor rep her opinion, she said that the only way to be legally covered is if the job description is sufficiently different to allow for the change. So if she did the same work at the job site and at the home department you could run into some issue. Take that for what it is worth.
Thanks for this! I might actually have some wiggle room then. The off-site project is not for her department and we actually know that we'll have to send extra people sometimes to do work that she is not capable of doing. If she was not married to the site manager she would never be assigned to this project. The site manager knows it too and has said he is willing to work extra to "cover" her but they are newly weds and don't want to be apart for 6 months (which is totally understandable) but he REALLY wants to do this project - it is a super cool project with a lot of cachet, and has a fantastic per diem in a fun location. We'll also have to end up paying some of our other people overtime to cover the work in her department.
None of this would have caused us any headache before the new FLSA updates. Everybody would have just gotten bonuses and been happy :) ahh well - the letter of the law is important.
Remember to GIVE her a new job title and job description during the time there.
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For your DH's job, one of 3 things will happen. They will give him a raise to the FLSA minimum to be exempt, they will pay him overtime for his 5-10 extra hours per week, they will cap his hours at 40 and expect him to get all the work done in that time. All three are generally good things. The latter may be impossible-ish but at least he would be working less for the same pay. Are you worried that they will just eliminate positions entirely rather than comply with the law? If they have enough work for him to do 45-50 hours/week it is unlikely that they would just eliminate the position. Most companies are doing raises to the FLSA minimum rather than making people hourly.
I think you're missing an option. They can cut his pay but give bonuses to ensure that he will make his previous salary. Doesn't make the record keeping headache go away, but as far as I know, nothing prevents you from dropping somebody to minimum wage, having them keep up with their hours and pay them any overtime that is appropriate, and then just top them up to their previous salary each pay period with "variable pay" or "bonus pay" or whatever. Not sure anybody will do this because it will be a pain and probably not great for moral, but I think it's an option.
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For your DH's job, one of 3 things will happen. They will give him a raise to the FLSA minimum to be exempt, they will pay him overtime for his 5-10 extra hours per week, they will cap his hours at 40 and expect him to get all the work done in that time. All three are generally good things. The latter may be impossible-ish but at least he would be working less for the same pay. Are you worried that they will just eliminate positions entirely rather than comply with the law? If they have enough work for him to do 45-50 hours/week it is unlikely that they would just eliminate the position. Most companies are doing raises to the FLSA minimum rather than making people hourly.
I think you're missing an option. They can cut his pay but give bonuses to ensure that he will make his previous salary. Doesn't make the record keeping headache go away, but as far as I know, nothing prevents you from dropping somebody to minimum wage, having them keep up with their hours and pay them any overtime that is appropriate, and then just top them up to their previous salary each pay period with "variable pay" or "bonus pay" or whatever. Not sure anybody will do this because it will be a pain and probably not great for moral, but I think it's an option.
Hmm, they could do something like this. They already pay something I think they call a "premium" when they rotate on-call weeks, plus a weekend bonus if your position requires weekend work (my husband's doesn't currently, but he frequently completes paperwork on the weekends). Other employers who have employees doing similar jobs have even more complicated pay structures (we know, because he interviewed this spring), including billable hours per month and all paperwork basically being unpaid time. Part of the reason he liked this employer is the fairly simple way they calculate salary and he can just do his work without thinking about hours. :/
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Well, I brought this up to HR today, and they told me I'm being switched to hourly. I am not happy with this change. The reasoning presented to me sounded a whole lot like they're just trying to avoid giving me a pay bump. She even told me that the rules for computer-related employee exemption are "fuzzy". I already get paid well below the national average ($45k as an entry-level iOS developer, when the national average is around $75k, and I live in a HCOL area). So it makes me feel rather undervalued as an employee that they'd rather make me hourly and tell me I'm not allowed overtime unless explicitly (and rarely) approved by my manager. I guess I'll be looking for a new job while I'm on maternity leave.
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I work in a university research lab and I'm not sure if they affect me at this point. A few weeks ago my PI told me he talked to HR to request a raise for me. He was told I wasn't eligible for a raise without a promotion, so he told them to give me a promotion. Then they said they aren't doing promotions for people in my position now because a promotion would put me in an exempt category. I don't know what's going to happen, but 5 pay periods have passed and I haven't seen a raise. It's very frustrating.
The post docs in our lab are already paid over the new limit and I haven't heard anything about grad student stipends being increased. The buzz among the grad students is about the ruling that they have the right to unionize.
My sister is an accountant making $45,000 and working a fair amount of overtime. Her company hasn't told her what they'll be doing yet, but the company isn't doing well. They have laid off a couple of the lower level people in the accounting department and everyone is struggling to stay on top of the work. She's aggressively job hunting.
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DH will be salary but non-exempt, so will be paid overtime as needed. Normally he doesn't work overtime, but his new position involves some travel so overtime will come into play there.
My boss's salary was well under the new cap, and I couldn't see the board bumping her salary that much, so I was curious how it would play out. It seems they did bump her salary more than I'd expected, but still just under the cap (when July 1 fiscal year kicked in). I believe they are still deciding how to handle it - most likely she'll be non-exempt and must limit overtime to near zero. We've got a tight budget, there's no room for unexpected expenses. Everyone else is hourly, part-time.
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Well, I brought this up to HR today, and they told me I'm being switched to hourly. I am not happy with this change. The reasoning presented to me sounded a whole lot like they're just trying to avoid giving me a pay bump. She even told me that the rules for computer-related employee exemption are "fuzzy". I already get paid well below the national average ($45k as an entry-level iOS developer, when the national average is around $75k, and I live in a HCOL area). So it makes me feel rather undervalued as an employee that they'd rather make me hourly and tell me I'm not allowed overtime unless explicitly (and rarely) approved by my manager. I guess I'll be looking for a new job while I'm on maternity leave.
I don't really see the big downside to being hourly. Rarely do salaried people benefit from that title. Most salaried people still have to work 40 hours/week. The old idea of salary was you could do 30 one week and 50 the next week and it would all balance out. Most employers don't allow that. With hourly, you get paid for all of the work that you do. So long as you still get benefits, vacation time and sick leave, I don't think hourly is that bad. I think it just has a stigma because people consider it a "lesser" position.
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I don't really see the big downside to being hourly. Rarely do salaried people benefit from that title. Most salaried people still have to work 40 hours/week. The old idea of salary was you could do 30 one week and 50 the next week and it would all balance out. Most employers don't allow that. With hourly, you get paid for all of the work that you do. So long as you still get benefits, vacation time and sick leave, I don't think hourly is that bad. I think it just has a stigma because people consider it a "lesser" position.
I got switched from salaried/exempt (which would be disallowed under the new rules) to hourly/non-exempt a few years ago without a huge change in responsibilities, and there's very little downside. I miss the occasional "duck out early on a Friday" because I need to hit my hours for the week, but that's pretty rare. I'm currently heading up a years-long project that's basically "all you can eat" OT, which is nice. The only thing that could suck is if your employer has a strict "no OT" policy, but requires OT-worthy production.
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Nope, no impact for either of us. Seems like it's tailored for a very small sliver of the population. I know a handful of positions where it will go into play, but those are such a tiny minority.
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No effect for my wife or I. She already works hourly in a lab that strongly discourages overtime, while I work as a nurse on a unit that is currently understaffed due to FMLA and multiple people becoming travel nurses, so overtime is so heavily encouraged that everyone must sign up for at least one extra shift per 6 weeks and bonuses are given to people who go on contract promising to work more. Nursing pays just ok as far as base pay is concerned, but shift differential and overtime can make it nice for saving/helping a spouse work less, as long as you can avoid burnout.
The main benefit I'd see to being salaried would be not having to clock in. At a prior job the clock in system sucked and management didn't really listen until a manager switched from being salaried to a different hourly position and raised a stink as to how bad the system was.
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My husband's salary was increased by $3000 to just go over the requirement. I'm more interested to see what they do with grad students.
Grad students are students, not employees, and even if they teach as part of a fellowship, they would not be affected by the rule change, according to this (and neither are teachers): https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/highered-guidance.pdf
Grad students have been getting fucked over for decades.
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Wanted to bump this thread. I mentioned earlier in the thread how my company was using this new law as an excuse to take away all of our accrued sick time. That motivated me to job search, and I am starting a new job in November with better benefits and a better commute. They are also matching my current salary (this is a government job so that was a big deal).
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Wanted to bump this thread. I mentioned earlier in the thread how my company was using this new law as an excuse to take away all of our accrued sick time. That motivated me to job search, and I am starting a new job in November with better benefits and a better commute. They are also matching my current salary (this is a government job so that was a big deal).
Awesome!! :)
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Wanted to bump this thread. I mentioned earlier in the thread how my company was using this new law as an excuse to take away all of our accrued sick time. That motivated me to job search, and I am starting a new job in November with better benefits and a better commute. They are also matching my current salary (this is a government job so that was a big deal).
Excellent! That's such great news!
We still haven't learned what DH's employer is doing. I suspect we'll find out during that pay period. :(
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We got an email from my employer stating that they are reviewing all positions that are currently classified as exempt but fall below the new income limits. They anticipate that the majority of positions will be reclassified as non-exempt but we can expect to be informed of changes to our positions in November. Non-exempt for me means "You're not approved for overtime. Report 40 hours but get your work done." I'm expecting the worst, which just means more motivation to start job hunting when the project I'm working on starts wrapping up.
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Well, we got the news. DH's job will become hourly as of Dec. 1. It's a little bit of a double-edged sword. He's been putting in ridiculous hours to get caught up on paperwork, but he says once he's caught up, he's hoping it all works out and he has more free time.
He sees the positive side of this (he'll be forced to get his work done during his 40 hours) and that means more time not at work. During the weeks when he's on-call, he'll need to take back those hours somewhere. Knowing how some of these weeks have gone, I find it laughable that the employer thinks he could get his work done plus the on-call work, without overtime, but we'll see. Maybe it's do-able, and if not, I already said I'd contact a lawyer if he works overtime for which he isn't paid. :)