Emergency situations — such as the April 15 explosions during the Boston Marathon — can result in employees performing multiple job duties. For example, a store manager may have spent time cleaning up glass and debris in and around the store. This type of work does not normally qualify as the manager’s duty; however, the emergency required the manager to step in. In such examples, job classification may be the last thing on an employer’s mind. However, when it comes time to write payroll, employers need to be certain how to label time worked during emergency situations, especially if the affected employees were exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act but performed nonexempt work.
The FLSA regulations recognize unique circumstances that might require, for example, exempt employees to perform nonexempt work. In those circumstances, the U.S. Department of Labor says, an employee’s “exempt” status will not be disturbed, even if he/she was performing nonexempt work.
When emergencies arise that threaten employee safety or cause a cessation of operations or serious damage to employer property, any work performed in an effort to prevent such results still is considered exempt work.
An emergency does not include occurrences that are within the employer’s control, nor for which the employer can reasonably provide in the normal course of business. Rather, an emergency is a rare occurrence that the employer cannot reasonably anticipate.
Read more about the regulation and emergency situations here.
For more information on the FLSA and its exemptions for private employers, see Fair Labor Standards for Private Employers or Private Employer’s Guide to FLSA Employee Classification.