Events related to the COVID-19 pandemic may have caused roles within retail operations to shift, and managers may have been required to do more when employees are unexpectedly sick or when staffing levels fell due to the “great resignation.” Therefore, employers need to be careful to potential loss of managers’ exempt status. This risk to exempt status has consequences not only for potential wage and hour liability for overtime pay, but union organizing efforts as well.
Twenty years ago, brick-and-mortar retail locations would typically have a manager, one or more assistant managers, and many part-time employees making sales, re-stocking, and assisting customers. The expanding online business sector, as well as waves of class and collective action lawsuits in the 2000s and 2010s, however, caused a shift in the traditional retail staffing model. Retailers moved away from having “exempt” assistant store managers and focused instead on leaner staffing with part-time, non-exempt employees. Today, in the retail sector, fewer store and warehouse employees are classified as “exempt” from overtime. Those who are exempt are typically store or warehouse managers who fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state “executive” exemption(s).
Generally, to be exempt, a manager must earn a minimum salary and:
The employee must customarily and regularly direct the work of at least two or more other full-time employees or their...
; ; Iran's Parliament Speaker, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, has warned Donald Trump that Tehran will close the Strait of Hormuz if the US continues its naval blockade, shortly after the US President ...