Posted on behalf of Arnold Law Firm on July 6, 2022 in Wage and Hour. Updated on June 2, 2023
When an employee has the word “manager” or “supervisor” in his or her title, the company he or she works for may try to make the person work longer hours without overtime pay. The company will likely use the excuse that as a manager the employee is exempt from overtime pay. However, this may not always be true.
If you have reason to believe you are overtime-eligible and worked more than 40 hours in a week but did not receive one-and-a-half times your hourly rate of pay for those hours, you may be able to take legal action to recover unpaid overtime.
Our wage and hour attorneys in Sacramento are prepared to confidentially review your claim during a free consultation. We can determine if you may have been misclassified as overtime exempt and discuss your options moving forward. There is no obligation to take legal action and there are no upfront fees, so there is no risk to you in talking to us.
An employee may receive a salary, have a managerial title and be paid over $100,000 a year, but that does not necessarily mean he or she is exempt from overtime pay.
To avoid paying certain employees overtime wages, companies might try to argue that your position as a manager, lead or director makes you exempt, but that is simply not true. For employees to be exempt from overtime pay, their employee duties must fit certain criteria. Then and only then can you be considered overtime exempt.
Companies that deny overtime compensation to employees who should receive overtime pay can be held accountable and made to pay unpaid wages and other damages.
To be exempt from overtime pay as a manager, your position must involve:
Managers who spend a majority of their workday completing the same tasks as their subordinates may not meet the criteria for overtime pay exemption. Therefore, an employee who is considered a part-time manager is not exempt from being paid overtime.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) lists some of the activities commonly associated with being a manager, including:
Most executives are considered exempt employees. However, there are criteria for this exemption, and these criteria are meant to prevent companies from labeling certain employees as executives as a workaround to paying them overtime when they are expected to work long hours.
For an employee to legally qualify as an exempt executive, he or she must:
As labor shortages continue to disrupt California’s workforce and economy, employees in managerial or executive positions need to evaluate the work they are being asked to do to ensure they are being paid fairly.
If your employer classifies you as an exempt employee, yet you are expected to complete tasks that do not qualify as exempt work, it may be a good idea to take these steps to protect your right to overtime pay:
The law states you can provide a reasonable estimate of hours you worked in case you have not taken the time to write down or log all the late-night phone calls or logins to your work laptop.
Remember that if you are classified as an exempt manager or executive, yet spend more than half your time doing the same job as your subordinates, your employer cannot refuse to pay you overtime.
If you believe you have been incorrectly denied overtime pay due to your title, you may be able to pursue compensation from your employer.
Let our attorneys review your claim. The consultation is free and confidential, and there is no obligation to take legal action.
Call 916-777-7777 to learn more.