The following article was first published in the Employment Law Letter section of Shipman & Goodwin’s website. It is reposted here with permission.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division released four new opinion letters in late May addressing difficult FLSA questions from employers and employees.

These are the agency’s official interpretation of the law, and employers who follow them get a legal safe harbor. Here’s what you need to know.

A hospital’s exempt specialists regularly pick up 12-hour weekend shifts as staff nurses, i.e., non-exempt work making up 23 to 38 percent of their weekly hours.

Does picking up these extra shifts cost them their exempt status?

The WHD said no. There is no strict percentage cap on non-exempt work. What matters is the overall character of the job, not a precise time breakdown.

Because these employees spend the substantial majority of their time (about 40 hours per week) in their exempt role and only pick up weekend shifts as a supplement, exempt status holds.

Added perk: paying an hourly rate for extra shifts doesn’t jeopardize the exemption either, as the FLSA allows additional compensation beyond the normal workweek.

An employer pays quarterly bonuses to a group of employees based on a pool tied to the company’s sales revenue.

Each employee’s share of the pool is determined by comparing their total earnings (including both regular pay and overtime pay) to the total earnings of all participating employees.

For example,...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMickFVX3lxTE1IXzFXWTBTNDF4WFJNWnhBQ1Mx...