Overtime or Not?

jhuggard · March 2009

At our company we have an employee who works a full time exempt position and also a part time non exempt position. I understand that this person does not qualify for overtime hours because of the exempt status of the first job.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

We have a second situation that has come up where there is the possibility of another employee working two separate jobs at the company; however this employee is non exempt. From everything I can read, we would be required to pay overtime for anything over 40 hours. My supervisor disagrees, she said that in her past, in production, she had one person who worked one shift doing one job and took a second job in the second shift doing another task. They were able to avoid overtime by paying him from difference job codes (i.e. production departments). She can’t see this as being different. I cannot find anything that supports this.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Happy Thursday!

6274086 · March 2009

I am not at all an expert but I would revisit your first statement- from what I understand the non-exempt duties could jeopardize the exempt status.

http://moss07.shrm.org/TemplatesTools/hrqa/Pages/Anexemptemployeewouldliketoearnadditionalmoneybyworkingasecond,part-timenonexemptjobatourcompanyHowdoIavoidovertimeissues.aspx

As for the second situation, I found this article as well and you could refer to the BLR Employment Law Guide which states that non-exempt employees working two separate non-exempt jobs have to be paid 1 1/2 for any hours over 40. Are there two different rates of pay? Then you may need to to a weighted average for the overtime.

http://moss07.shrm.org/TemplatesTools/hrqa/Pages/WewouldliketohaveanonexemptemployeeworktwojobswithadifferenthourlyrateofpayWhichrateofpayisusedtocalculatetheemployee%E2%80%99sover.aspx

TXHRGuy · March 2009

[quote user="jhuggard"] [...] We have a second situation that has come up where there is the possibility of another employee working two separate jobs at the company; however this employee is non exempt. From everything I can read, we would be required to pay overtime for anything over 40 hours. My supervisor disagrees, she said that in her past, in production, she had one person who worked one shift doing one job and took a second job in the second shift doing another task. They were able to avoid overtime by paying him from difference job codes (i.e. production departments). She can’t see this as being different. I cannot find anything that supports this.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Happy Thursday![/quote]

Your supervisor is wrong.

6400881 · March 2009

The Supervisor is incorrect -- Not only do you owe this person OT -- but you'll need to calculate that overtime rate by averaging their pay per hour to calculate the appropriate OT rate. For example. If she works 30 hours at $15/hour and the works at the second job at $10/hour for 20hours -- the OT rate would be (30 x $15) + (20 x $10)/50 hours x 1.5 to get the OT rate.

I would also question the Exempt status of your first employee. Make sure that once you calculate in the 2nd employment that they aren't losing their exemption by working more hours in a non-supervisory role than they should.

We prohibit associates from working more than one job for our company -- it's too difficult to monitor -- and the different divisions don't want to be stuck with the OT costs.

Good Luck

Overtime or Not?

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