Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the federal overtime law, employers are required to pay their employees overtime for hours worked over 40 in a week, unless they meet a particular legal “exemption.”
These overtime exemptions typically require that an employee be paid a set amount of money each week (e.g. a salary) and that the employee perform certain job duties in carrying out their job.
These job duties that give rise to an exemption must be the actual job duties of the job they are hired to do. Many of exemptions that employers rely on when classifying an employee as exempt from overtime “do not apply to employees training for employment in an [exempt] capacity who are not actually performing the duties of [an exempt position]”). 29 C.F.R. § 541.705.
For example, outside salespeople who undergo a preliminary training program when they are first hired may be entitled to overtime pay for the overtime hours worked during that program if they are not actually making outside sales during the training program. Similarly, overtime exempt-classified store managers often begin as “Store Managers in Training,” where they shadow full-time store managers and learn how to perform the jobs of the hourly paid employees in the store. Time spent in this training role likely does not qualify them as “exempt” and therefore those store managers may be entitled to overtime during those training weeks.
Being wrongfully classified as exempt entitles you to your back overtime pay plus an equal amount of damages (liquidated damages). If you believe that you were wrongfully classified as overtime exempt during a training program and entitled to back overtime pay, do not hesitate to contact us at info@pkglegal.com or at (561) 726-8444 for a free evaluation of your claim.