Salary Compensation Practices

manpreet Best Answer 3 years ago

Currently, I work for a company that gave me a written letter of offer (a few months ago) that stated expressly:

You will be eligible to receive the following beginning on your first day:

Salary: Weekly salary of $X ($Z / Year)

...

When I discussed this fact with my supervisor, indirectly (due to my wanting to acquire keys to our buildings), he stated that he was worried about overtime with their usage/acquirement (even though I had never reported any such time...or any time for that fact) and when asked that "I don't get overtime because I am salary, correct? I haven't reported any, ever." he replied "No No, you get paid time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week. You are hourly." - He was very polite and nice about this, but I am confused by this and my written letter of offer. I was under the impression I am salary (i.e. that my href="https://forum.tuteehub.com/tag/wages">wages are GUARANTEED for each week and that I do NOT get any overtime).

With this information in mind, would it be safe to conclude that I am salaried exempt or that I am salaried non-exempt or just plain hourly? I do not want to escalate the issue in fear of causing some kind retribution or action(s) against me, my perks, and my pay scale. Should I ask our "HR" department (which is really just the VP of accounting)? I just want clarity.

manpreet 3 years ago

Salaried and overtime exempt are not the same, as you know from your question.

The first step is to talk to HR (VP of Accounting in your case) and confirm what they think you are (Salary Exempt, Salary Non-Exempt, or Hourly).

You ideally want to be Salary Non-Exempt because then you get paid for your overtime... yay!

The second step would be to investigate the Exempt, Non-Exempt href="https://forum.tuteehub.com/tag/rules">rules and determine if the company has calculated properly. If your company says you're Exempt, but you think you should be Non-Exempt, then you have to decide if it is worth pursuing. That would likely involve a lawyer and ruffling feathers at your new job.

(It sounds like you're not expecting to be paid overtime, so this may not apply to you specifically)