If you are like most employers in Northeast Ohio, as soon as the FLSA Final Rule was published back in May, your first step was to take a look at those employees on your payroll that make less than $47,476.
Embarking on this fact finding mission is a great place to start, but while employers are scanning their payroll records, there are two other dollar figures that are also worth a quick look to ensure full compliance with the Final Rule come December 1, 2016.
Although far less common than the Standard Salary Level change for Executive, Administrative, and Professional employees (EAP), employers will also need to assess the exempt status of any employees that fall under the “Highly Compensated Employee” (HCE) exemption.
How do I know if I have a “Highly Compensated Employee” (HCE)?
Currently, the dollar amount for the HCE is set at $100,000 annually, but under the new regulations this figure is increasing to $134,004 annually. However, as with the Standard Exemption, compensation alone does not determine the appropriate classification for an employee. The primary difference between the EAP exemption and the HCE exemption, apart from the salary cap, is the duties test itself.
For the HCE’s a “minimal duties” test is applied, which states—per the DOL’s own fact sheet on HCEs—that the minimum duties test is met if, “the employee customarily and regularly performs at least one of the exempt duties or responsibilities of an exempt executive, administrative, or professional employee”.
While you may have many employees that meet the salary threshold, you may not have any employees that need to be categorized as HCEs. Instead, based on the job duties assigned to most of your employees making over the HCE salary threshold, these employees probably meet more than enough of the duties test to qualify as exempt under the EAP exemption. Again, given the six-figure salary number, in these cases, these individuals are probably more appropriately classified as “Executive” and therefore already fall under the EAP exemption.
What does the new Final Rule change for my HCEs?
Changes to employee classification resulting from the new compensation assessment for HCEs are likely mostly administrative in nature, but should still be reviewed in order to remain compliant. The only major change is the increased figure of $134,004. Also, keep in mind that these employees will also need to meet the new Standard Exemption level of $913 weekly in base salary (this can be in the form of either a set salary or fee per the regulations).
The requirement to meet the Standard Exemption level is no different, but the dollar amount itself has increased to fit the Final Rule. The rest, a minimum of $86,528 to be exact, would then come in the form of commissions and other nondiscretionary compensation/bonuses (also the same rule as before).
In addition, the HCE threshold will automatically update every three years to a level that meets the 90th percentile of annual earnings of full-time salaried workers nationally.
So who does this really impact?
Per initial estimates the changes to the HCE exemption will impact about 36,000 employees (in contrast an estimated 4.6 million workers will be impacted by the change to the Standard Exemption Salary increase) Again, the key numbers to look at here are any employees that fall between $100,000 and $134,004 annually.
As an example, if an exempt employee is currently making $120,000 annually and upon review of their job duties, does NOT fully meet the duties test for EAP employees, (and the employer chose not to increase their compensation to meet the new $134,004 threshold or restructure the makeup of their total compensation package to get to this number—there are lots of options!) then this individual’s status would need to change to non-exempt.
Disclaimer: ERC does not provide qualified legal opinions. Information obtained through the site and services should not be relied upon or considered a substitute for legal advice. The information ERC provides is for general employer use and not necessarily for individual application. ERC recommends that you consult legal counsel for workplace matters.
