Yesterday we looked at some of the ways to prepare for the new Department of Labor’s (DOL) final overtime regulations. Today, more ways to prepare for switching exempt employees to nonexempt.
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By Susan Prince, JD, MSL, Legal Editor
- Regular communication. Regular communication will make employees feel that their concerns have been heard. Give employees an opportunity to ask questions, voice their concerns, and have an open dialogue to learn more about the regulatory changes.
- Appoint someone other than the employee’s manager as a point person for communication. For some people, complaining to a direct manager is very uncomfortable. It is helpful if employees have an outlet for communication that is not responsible for writing their performance reviews. This can be a person in Human Resources (HR), but it should be someone who communicates well and has a good understanding of overtime law and its classifications.
- Be proactive. It’s difficult to change habits you may have had for years, such as working through lunch, checking work e-mails after work, or taking evening work-related phone calls. Supervisors should make it a point to walk around the facility daily and check time cards to be sure nonexempt employees are not working through meal periods or staying late.
Under the de minimis rule, employers may disregard insubstantial or insignificant periods of time beyond the scheduled working hours if, as a practical administrative matter, the time cannot be precisely recorded. But this rule applies only where industrial realities justify the practice, and the periods of time involved are uncertain and amount to a few seconds or minutes.
An employer may not fail to count any part, however small, of the employee’s fixed or regular work time. If habitual “offenders” are logging extra time out of habit, supervisors should speak to them about adjusting their routines. If employees are struggling to meet workload demands, redistribution or rescheduling may be in order. Communication is the key to spotting, understanding, and resolving these problems.
Prepare Now
Create your communication plan now. Who will be the person speaking to employees—their direct manager or some other person in the company? What will this person say and how will he or she represent the changes? Prepare a document that explains the what/why/how/when of the changes to share with affected employees. Be transparent.
Determine which jobs are likely to shift categories under the updated regulations. Pinpoint those employees who are likely to be affected by the changes.
Review your job descriptions now to determine whether they are still accurate, reflect the jobs being performed, and reflect the skills necessary to perform the jobs. Review employees’ actual job duties to ensure that they still fall within the administrative, executive, professional, computer, or outside sales exemptions.
Then make sure overtime for nonexempt employees has been properly calculated. Conducting a self-audit now will help ensure your company is in compliance with federal and state laws.