|
Server : Apache/2.4.62 System : FreeBSD fbsdweb2.web.rcn.net 14.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE releng/14.1-n267679-10e31f0946d8 GENERIC amd64 User : www ( 80) PHP Version : 8.3.8 Disable Function : NONE Directory : /domains/highlandlabs/cqi-bin/ALFA_DATA/alfasymlink/root/domains/hrahg/hru/otj/ |
Upload File : |
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>HRA - On The Job</title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive, nofollow" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="hronthejob.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="header" align="center">
<img src="../../graphics/logo.jpg" style="height: 100px; margin: auto; display: block; text-align: center" />
<b style="color: blue">Human Resource Associates</b>
</div>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="content">
<span class="heading">HR - On The Job</span>
<p class="issue">What Am I Paying You For?</p>
<p>Hundreds of new field agents have recently been hired by the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate the American workplace. They are looking for violations of federal laws and regulations, particularly the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), also known as the federal Wage and Hour Law. Although any suspected violation will be investigated, those items dealing with paying employees are high on the list. And the item on the top of the list is the misclassification of employee status.</p>
<p>An employee's FLSA status has to do with whether that employee is paid a fixed salary or by the hour. Is he exempt or nonexempt? Among the many labor laws, exempt/nonexempt status can be one of the most confusing. The company's decision is often made by determining that employees who are paid a weekly, monthly, or annual salary are automatically exempt. All others are hourly employees, who must then be paid overtime.</p>
<p>In truth, how you pay an employee has little to do with determining his or her FLSA status. It actually works the other way around: the employee's FLSA status determines how he or she will be paid. FLSA status is determined by the content of the work assigned to a specific job. The federal government is currently considering more changes in these regulations that may have an additional impact on who gets overtime.</p>
<p>For the purposes of this article, let's say that every employee in the United States must be paid overtime for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek. Then, let's say there are four basic exemptions to that requirement (there are additional but rare exemptions). If the employee meets the tightly worded definition of an executive, an administrator, a professional or an outside salesperson, they are considered exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA.</p>
<p>So, is there a difference in what I pay an exempt vs. a nonexempt employee? Don't I just pay them both to show up and work? The answer may be found in the assignments, expectations, and evaluation of the work your employees are doing.</p>
<p class="section">Nonexempt</p>
<p>Approximately 80 percent of all U.S employees are considered nonexempt, hourly paid workers. These employees get paid for each hour they work and 1½ time for all hours worked over 40 hours in their workweek.</p>
<p><em>Essentially, you are paying the nonexempt employee to surrender control of his hours to you.</em> The job description for a nonexempt employee will be filled with functions, activities, and even with instructions on what to do when there's nothing to do. You would more rigidly control his starting and quitting time and daily activity, as well as what he does and how he does it.</p>
<p>You evaluate this employee's work by determining how competently, efficiently, and productively those functions have been carried out.</p>
<p><em>The primary reasons you would terminate the nonexempt employee are that he does not carry out the functions satisfactorily, she cannot/does not learn the functions, or misses too much work to do these things properly.</em></p>
<p class="section">Exempt</p>
<p><em>You are paying the exempt employee to produce a predetermined end result.</em> Generally, you have less concern about their hour-by-hour activity or precisely how they get things done. They are expected to be more focused on achieving the end results by using their professional judgment and knowledge. There is much less focus on how they choose to do what they're doing or how long a specific process takes. All these things may be important, but much less so than with the non-exempt worker.</p>
<p>The exempt employee has much more freedom to act and is expected to make decisions about significant things. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>One manager may be a very good delegator. She may accomplish the end results you specified by selecting, training, developing, and assigning the right people to the right work and managing the process.</li>
<li>A second manager may be highly technical and accomplish the same end result by selecting and using the right technology.</li>
<li>A third manager may be a totally dedicated employee who works 15 hours a day for seven straight days to accomplish the same end-result.</li>
</ul>
<p>The job description of the exempt employee will generally include an overview of the working environment, the nature and scope of the position, and how the job relates to other staff members. But, it focuses on the (usually) five to eight accountabilities that comprise the end results you desire from this position.</p>
<p><em>The primary reason you would terminate the exempt employee is the failure to accomplish the required end result.</em></p>
<hr />
<p align="center"><b><i>Have an employment question?</i></b></p>
<p align="center">Send it to <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=From HR On The Job">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p align="center">Please include Company Name and Association in your e-mail. Company identification will be kept confidential.</p>
<hr />
<p class="heading">Hitchhiking on the Information Highway</p>
<p><b>Dateline:</b> April 2011</p>
<p><i>(Note: Although we attempt to provide the HRU update on the first of each month, we are normally delayed awaiting the release of several monthly government statistical reports. We will hereafter update the information as each report becomes available without waiting for all of them to be released.)</i></p>
<p class="section">Will The Circle Be Unbroken?</p>
<p>Pensions are pretty neat things. To one degree or another, every worker has one and some certainly are better than others. One of the best can be found in the case of some government workers who are only required to work for twenty years before they can take their pension. In many cases those pensions pay more than the employee earned while working. And in that they are lifetime pensions, many may be receiving those pensions for forty years or more. So a government worker who retires after twenty years of work making $85,000 a year can then be paid $90,000 a year for the next forty years as a thank you. And in some cases they never paid a penny into those pension plans. How long can any system last paying more for retirement than they paid for the work? Oh, and also pay it for twice as long as the work lasted.</p>
<p>How long indeed. The answer to that takes us into the next stage of a modern day merry-go-round or as some are calling it, a vicious circle. In Costa Mesa, California the new town mayor discovered that they were paying out more money to employees on union pensions than they were paying to employees still on the job! He was unable to get any concessions from the unions so he decided that he had to take a drastic step that may be a forerunner of things to come. <em>He has to lay off almost half of the city's current workers in order to have enough money to pay the retirees!</em></p>
<p>The vicious cycle comes about when it you consider that the retirement account doesn't even have any money. Like the U.S. Social Security fund, when you open that retirement lock-box, it's full of IOUs. The money to pay the retirees comes from the payments being made into the retirement account for the current employees. But when they reduce the number of current employees by half, the amount going into the retirement fund will also be reduced by half. So in order to pay the retirees he must lay-off current workers. But by laying off current workers he will not have the money to pay the retirees. The question again rises, how long can any system pay more for retirement than they pay for the work? How long indeed.</p>
<p>If you like complicated puzzles, think on this. Half-way through that forty year pension, the next group of retirees will have finished their twenty years and will be joining them. Now there are twice as many workers on forty year pension as before, but will still have the same number of workers (or fewer) paying in. The circle is unbroken.</p>
<p class="quote">“I don't want to abolish government.<br />
I just want to reduce it to the stage<br />
where I can drag it to the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub”<br />
- Grover Norquist</p>
<p class="section">More Circles Ahead</p>
<p>While we're on pensions consider the impact of pension costs (Which taxpayers are going to have to bail out all those failing plans?). What if suddenly there was a big increase in the number of government employees retiring? Well some experts are forecasting a boom in government and union retirements over the next five years, starting now. How do they know this?</p>
<p><em>Many government union plans are very generous in how they calculate pension amounts.</em> It's often based upon the earnings of the final five years of employment. That includes annual earnings, overtime worked, bonuses collected, incentives paid, vacations not taken, sick leave accumulated etc. So the more promotions, overtime etc an employee can pack into those last five years, the higher the pension amount. (<em>That's how the pensions can sometimes be more than the annual salaries.</em>) Those experts are reporting that the overtime hours of government employees across the country are exploding. In some areas an employee can more than double his/her income through the amount of overtime allowed.</p>
<p>Another method of increasing retirement amounts is by job injuries. Disability retirements pay more than regular retirements. A legitimate disability retirement in any industry is an honest process of compensating someone for the injury received on-the-job that will affect them for the rest of their lives. And the cost is minimal when you consider that fewer than 10% of private industry workers are on disability retirement pensions. But the reports show that the amount of injuries occurring during those last five years of government employment seem to be jumping significantly. A few years ago the Washington Post reported that over 75% of all the retired policemen in Washington D.C. were on disability pensions.</p>
<p>With the amount of overtime being reported increasing dramatically, the number of job injuries during the last five years of employment age increasing and the fear that in a few years the pension accounts may be bankrupt the signs may be right.</p>
<p>And if you want to add another complication, consider that in some cases, the union continues to negotiate pension increases after the employee has retired. As long as the employee keeps paying the union dues, he will be represented at the bargaining table for increases in pay and benefits. (That's another way pensions can pay more than the employee earned while he was working and in some cases more than the employee currently doing that same job.)</p>
<p class="quote">“Wherefore, being all of one mind,<br />
we do highly resolve that government of the grafted, by the grafter for the grafter<br />
shall not perish from the earth”<br />
- Mark Twain</p>
<p class="section">Is It Time For My Retirement Yet?</p>
<p>An employee named Jill McGlone worked at the Norfolk Community Services Board in Norfolk, Virginia. That is she did until 1998 when she was fired for allegedly bringing a weapon to work. Then it seems that the top brass just forgot about her. She was never fired, but then again, she never did another day's work. Yet she has been getting those paychecks every payday! For 12 years she's been getting them while sitting at home.</p>
<p>Last year a new executive director realized the mistake and stopped the payments. The HR director has been fired and the FBI is involved. After all, there may be others on that phantom payroll. But as you have probably guessed by now, McGlone has sued her former employer for wrongful termination! Oh, and she wants unemployment benefits too. You can't make this stuff up.</p>
<p class="quote">“The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks”<br />
- Rupert Murdoch</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: center"><sub>© William J. Cook</sub></p>
</div>
<div id="sidebar">
<span class="heading">Labor Stats</span>
<hr />
<b>Federal Minimum Wage</b>
<hr />
<p align="center">
<b>$7.25</b>/hour<br />
</p>
<hr />
<b>Average Income</b>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td /><td class="u">March 2011</td><td class="u">March 2010<td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Hourly</td><td class="b">$22.87</td><td class="b">$22.48</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Weekly</td><td class="b">$784.44</td><td class="b">$766.57</td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<b>Federal Povery Level</b>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td class="i">one person</td><td class="b">$10,956</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">family of four</td><td class="b">$21,954</td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<b>IRS Mileage Allowance</b>
<hr />
<p>As of January 1, 2011</p>
<table>
<tr><td class="i">business</td><td><b>51</b> cents/mile</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">medical or moving</td><td class="b">19</b></td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">charitable</td><td class="b">14</td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<b>Postage</b>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td class="i">1 oz</td><td><b>44</b> cents</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">postcard</td><td class="b">28</td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<b>Population</b>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td class="i">world</td><td class="b">6.9 billion</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">U.S.</td><td class="b">311.9 million</td></tr>
</table>
<p align="center">
<i>one birth every </i><b>8</b><i> seconds;</i><br />
<i>one death every </i><b>11</b><i> seconds;</i><br />
<i>one new immigrant every </i><b>45</b><i> seconds;</i><br />
<i>net gain of one person every </i><b>15</b><i> seconds.</i>
</p>
<hr />
<b>U.S. Civilian Workforce</b>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td /><td class="u">March 2011</td><td class="u">March 2010</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Total</td><td class="b">153,406,000</td><td class="b">153,895,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Employed</td><td class="b">139,864,000</td><td class="b">138,952,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Unemployed</td><td class="b">13,542,000</td><td class="b">14,943,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Want A Job</td><td class="b">6,509,000</td><td class="b">5,996,000</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">Unemployment Rate</td><td class="b">8.8%</td><td class="b">9.7%</td></tr>
</table>
<br /><hr />
<b>U.S. Workforce Productivity</b><br />
<sub><i>(The amount of goods produced, divided by the number of work hours it took to produce it)</i></sub>
<hr />
<table>
<tr><td class="i">1992</td><td class="b">3.7%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1993</td><td class="b">0.5%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1994</td><td class="b">1.3%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1995</td><td class="b">0.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1996</td><td class="b">2.5%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1997</td><td class="b">2.0%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1998</td><td class="b">2.6%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">1999</td><td class="b">3.3%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2000</td><td class="b">3.4%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2001</td><td class="b">2.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2002</td><td class="b">4.6%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2003</td><td class="b">3.7%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2004</td><td class="b">2.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2005</td><td class="b">1.7%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2006</td><td class="b">0.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2007</td><td class="b">1.9%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2008</td><td class="b">1.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2009</td><td class="b">+5.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2010 1st quarter</td><td class="b">+2.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2010 2nd quarter</td><td class="b">-1.8%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2010 3rd quarter</td><td class="b">+2.3%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2010 4th quarter</td><td class="b">+2.6%</td></tr>
<tr><td class="i">2010 overall average</td><td class="b">+3.6%</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>