AboutShirley McAllister, CPP, PHR Expertise I can answer questions pertaining to Compensation, Health Benefits, Retirement Plans, Payroll,Payroll taxes, Employee selection, Employee Termination, Training, and Employee Incentives. I have offices in U.S., Canada, UK, South Africa,Australia and NZ. I am most confident in the U.S. and Canadian but have knowledge of the internationals.
I do not have extensive knowledge of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. I do have some Human Resource Knowledge in those areas.
Please do not ask me homework questions, I do not have time to answer them.
Experience I currently hold both the U.S. and Canadian Payroll Certifications.
I currently hold the SHRM PHR certification.
I have worked in the Human Resources area with high emphasis on compensation and benefits for 25 years at the same company.
My company is an international company and I work with our International offices whenever there is a Human Resource area needing addressed.
I volunteer on the American Payroll Association hotline and have for the last 10 years or so. I answer many questions each week for other payroll and HR professionals, mostly on taxes, benefits and compensation issues.
I have been the trustee for our 401K plan for Retirement benefits and our 125 Cafeteria Plan for Health Insurance benefits.
Organizations SHRM, National
APA, National
DOLEA, State
National Mentoring Network
I.O.M.A. Advisory Board
Publications I.O.M.A.
BNA
Education/Credentials Boise State University Human Resource Certificate Program
PHR through SHRM
CPP through American Payroll Association
Payroll Administrator and Payroll Supervisor certification through Canadian Payroll Association
Published writer of Payroll and Benefit articles in a payroll Publication
25 years experience in an International Company
Awards and Honors Citation of Merit 8 years in a row for hotline service for A.P.A.
Honor Award for child mentoring service through RSVP and National Mentoring
A "Pat on the Back" award for outstanding leadership as a Youth Group Leader by "The Salvation Army."
Runner up for Employee of the Year at my Company twice and Employee of the month 4 times.
Past/Present Clients I used to answer questions on Ask.com when they had a similar quesition and answer section.
I volunteer for APA hotline
I also belong to several HR forums when I often answer questions
Question Hello. I work for a large international company on a project that has been requiring a lot of overtime work. My European colleagues get paid overtime, and my American colleagues and I do not (we all have the exact same job.) They say this is a difference between Italian and American labor laws. Recently, I have been reading about the Fair Labor Standards Act on the Internet, and I cannot find any reason why I should NOT get paid for the overtime I work. I work on a Change Management team for an SAP implementation project. Our team consists of 13 recent college graduates. We've had this job for a little over a year now. I think that, since we are young and this is most of our first job out of college, the company thinks it is easy to take advantage of us, thinking we won't know any better if we ARE entitled to overtime pay. For this reason, I just want to make sure. Here is some information about our position: We all make $45,000 a year, on a bi-weekly salary. We are not IT employees...none of us have a background in computer-related fields. Our areas of study include mostly Economics and Business, but also Foreign Language and Psychology, so we are a very diverse group. Our team's main responsibilities are to train our dealers and employees on a new computer system. 6 of us spent several months working with the testing team, testing the new system, because they needed extra help, and my boss thought it would be a good way for us to learn the system. Another main responsibility of the Change Management team is to create the training materials (mostly Participant Guides and in-class computer-based simulations). We are also responsible for Role Mapping (determining the access required in the new system for each group of employees within the business), and Organizational Impact (determining how the organization of the company will change-- which groups will be impacted by the implementation, how they will be impacted, and how much). All of these responsibilities are to be shared amongst all of us on the team.
So, my question is this: What about our job makes us [Americans] exempt from overtime pay? And, if nothing, what do you suggest we do about it?
Answer Below you will find from the Department of Labor website the definition of the Computer Employee Exemption. I think you fit this exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
You make more than the required 455.00 a week.
You are not only applying systems for computers you are training others in them. It specifically mentions consulting with users.
This is the classification the company is using for your job to exempt you from the FLSA.
Computer Employee Exemption
To qualify for the computer employee exemption, the following tests must be met:
• The employee must be compensated either on a salary or fee basis (as defined in the regulations) at a rate not less than $455 per week or, if compensated on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour;
• The employee must be employed as a computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software engineer or other similarly skilled worker in the computer field performing the duties described below;
• The employee’s primary duty must consist of:
1) The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software or system functional specifications;
2) The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to user or system design specifications;
3) The design, documentation, testing, creation or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems; or
4) A combination of the aforementioned duties, the performance of which requires the same level of skills.
