Steps To Prepare for New Overtime Pay Rules

It has been over ten years since the Department of Labor overhauled the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime regulations.  Over two years ago, President Obama directed the Department of Labor to look at the exemptions and simplify them.  President Obama opined that the required salary was “too low” and that the 2004 regulations were simply too difficult to interpret – as demonstrated by the increasing litigation over who met the managerial/executive exemption.  The Department of Labor took almost two years to publish proposed regulations that did nothing more than to suggest that the minimum salary requirement should be raised to $50,440.  The vagueness of the proposed regulations left employers in a limbo of how to budget for 2016.

The Department of Labor has also been slow about finalizing the regulation with the minimum salary set at $47,476 with automatic increases every three years.  Finally, these regulations have been finalized.  Employers have until December 1, 2016 to comply. 

The webinar will outline practical advice for employers to mitigate the impact of the initial increase in the white-collar and highly compensated employee (HCE) exemption thresholds and plan ahead for automatic updates to the thresholds. Susan will also talk about new regulations on salary thresholds for exempting white-collar workers subject to the duties test (executive, administrative, professional, outside sales and computer employees) and HCE employees. Job descriptions will have to be analyzed and revised.  The new rules will also affect your 2017 budget and beyond.  What do you need to do to come into compliance?

Learning Objectives:

• Anticipated legal challenges to final rules
• Case examples of why President Obama demanded new regulations
• New minimum salary requirements for white collar exemptions
• New minimum salary requirements for highly compensated employees
• Use of non-discretionary bonuses to establish minimum salary requirements
• Why the Department of Labor did not change the duties test
• How the Department of Labor will determine automatic increases in the future
• Overview of new overtime exemption standards
• Identifying employees affected by this change
• Analyzing the organizational impact of your employee classification strategy
• Conducting internal audits
• Suggested policies and procedures to avoid misclassifications
• Analyzing and strategically addressing the financial impact of raising salaries vs. paying overtime to comply with the new minimum salary thresholds
• Meeting the standards to include bonuses, incentive payments and commissions as factors in workers’ salary level
• Preparing for the 2020 automatic updates to the salary thresholds Case examples of why President Obama demanded new regulations

Who will Benefit: Human resource professionals, Chief Financial Officers, Business Owners, Payroll Clerks