Moving to a non-exempt, salaried position

March 10, 2013 1:10 PM

What else do I need to know about moving from an hourly position to a salaried but still non-exempt position?

I am being promoted (yay) to a new position in my company. Right now I am paid hourly and have to have overtime approved by my current boss. I have read enough to know that non-exempt means that you must be paid time and a half for any hours over 40 per week. I want to make sure that I am clear on all of the rules and how most companies handle things. My new boss is new to his position as well and I can't access everything on the HR website until my promotion is effective.

What I do know:
-I am bonus eligible
-Vacation is given by calendar year and I have not used any of 2013's yet. I will have the same amount as I do in my current position.
-Roughly how my benefits will change

What I don't know but plan to ask:
Is overtime allowed? Is it ever required?
What is the payday schedule? (some are 2x monthly and some are every two weeks)
How they want me to handle scheduling (shifts, time off, OT, etc.)

What else should I ask about? I will be having a meeting with someone to go over these things, so I want to be prepared for that. This last one is more of a general question. How do companies usually calculate your check if they do pay twice a month? Is it just always 1/24th of your salary, or does it have anything to do with how many days were in the pay period?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (6 answers total)

How would we know this information? We could tell you generally what our salaried positions are like, but that may not apply to you. Your HR department can give you the correct answer to these questions.
posted by two lights above the sea at 1:32 PM on March 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Salaried non-exempt" means different things to different employers.

Typically it means that you have a fixed full-time schedule and that you will be paid as if you worked 37.5 hours per week (or 40 hours per week if lunch is included or your day is 8.5 hours) even if you actually work less in a particular pay period. Often it means that holidays, vacation days, and sick days will be treated as days you clocked in for the full schedule, so your base pay doesn't vary.

It does not exempt your employer from tracking your hours and paying you overtime at an imputed hourly rate if you work overtime.
posted by MattD at 1:35 PM on March 10, 2013

You seriously need to do some research about YOUR jurisdiction. In Oregon, for example, "exempt" means exempt from the requirement that you be paid for over-time, subject to some fairly specific definitions of what constitutes "exempt". See, for instance, http://www.oregon.gov/boli/TA/pages/t_faq_taclass.aspx
posted by uncaken at 1:43 PM on March 10, 2013

Insist on a full description of your job and its pay schedule. Being made "management" can mean working 50 or 60 hour weeks without overtime pay because you are not in a an union-protected job. Two men I know have realized they were victims of this practice and reverted to their previous job level in order to protect themselves from exploitation.
posted by Cranberry at 2:17 PM on March 10, 2013

: "Is it just always 1/24th of your salary, or does it have anything to do with how many days were in the pay period?"

Every salaried job I've had has split the annual salary evenly across paychecks, no daily accounting. Of course, the last job was biweekly, and my current one is one paycheck a month. So not exactly your situation, but pretty close. I suppose they could try it, but I can't imagine HR deciding it was worth the effort.
posted by pwnguin at 10:51 PM on March 10, 2013

Mod note: This is a followup from the asker.

Clarifications: I am not looking for answers to the list of questions I posted but rather what other questions I should be asking. I realize this is confusing, sorry.

Also this is an already existing position and not a reclassification of my current job.

posted by cortex (staff) at 7:27 AM on March 11, 2013