Policies for Non-Exempt Employees
I am currently working on updating many of our policies to prepare for the new OT regulations, and am doing my final communication to affected employees this week.
I'm anticipating some questions from employees who will be changed from exempt to non-exempt, and was curious what others are doing? Here are some of questions I'm anticipating:
- Do I need to clock in and out if I take breaks throughout the day, or just at lunch?
- We have monthly Lunch and Learns, where we buy lunch for the company and someone presents a topic. Will this count as a paid lunch, since it's professional development for the employees? How do we handle that - pay 1 hour of overtime every time we have a L&L, or have employees flex their time?
- I used to be able to come in a little late or leave a little early if I had a doctor's appointment. Will I now lose pay since I will be clocking out, when before I was able to get compensated for the whole day?
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1. Clocking out for paid breaks is not required. Only the unpaid meal period, which needs to be at minimum 30 minutes. And if someone starts talking to an employee about work-related items prior to the end of the 30 minutes, the company ends up having to pay for that entire lunch period. It is not limited to only the time left to get to 30, but the entire 30 minutes. So stress to your people to get away from their desks for that unpaid time and keep work talk out of the breakroom.
2. Yes, it's a paid lunch. You can handle how you would like to as a company to balance out that extra hour. But be consistent with all affected employees.
3. Yes, you will lose that pay unless you a) supplement with PTO, b) flex your time with your employer's approval. You get paid for the actual hours worked, not a flat 40.
I'm making certain assumptions with my responses though - are you keeping them Salary but Non-Exempt? Or are you going to straight Hourly? My answers above are based on going straight to Hourly.
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Thank you Stephanie Winterquist ! Yes, they are going to straight hourly (not salary non-exempt).