Human Resources: Frequently Asked Questions - FLSA for Employees
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
For additional questions regarding overtime, the FLSA, or any other related questions, please contact your HR Consultant at 540/568-7247.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, more commonly known as FLSA, is a federal wage and hour law which was passed in 1938. The FLSA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor standards affecting full-time and part-time employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments. Compliance with the FLSA is enforced by the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).
The FLSA requires employers to pay employees at least the minimum wage, currently $11.00 an hour. The FLSA provides some employees with an exemption from the overtime requirements if they meet certain “white collar” exemption tests. This exemption provides an exception to the overtime rules for employees who meet the exemption tests for administrative, professional, executive, outside salesperson, and computer employees.
Under the federal FLSA, a nonexempt employee is one who is entitled to at least the minimum wage for each hour worked and to overtime whenever working more than 40 hours in a workweek. Any employee may be classified as nonexempt.
By contrast, an employee who is exempt from the overtime provisions of the FLSA is not eligible to be paid overtime by the university. In order to be exempt from overtime, the employee’s job duties performed must meet one of the FLSA exemption tests, must be paid on a fixed salary basis at a rate of at least $684 per week ($35,568 annually).
You will now be a non-exempt employee. This means that you can now earn overtime compensation at a rate of one and one-half times your regular rate of pay for all hours physically worked in excess of 40 in a workweek.
This change in status is simply a difference in the timekeeping and payroll processes. However, as a non-exempt employee, you will need to record all time worked on your timesheet, including any leave taken.
No. Leave accruals will remain the same. However, a non-exempt employee, will be required to report all hours worked, as well as any leave taken each day on the Time and Attendance Record.
Time records must include a daily record of all paid and non-paid leave used. The paid leave includes annual leave, sick leave, holidays, workers' compensation, civil leave, inclement weather days, and military leave. The unpaid leave would include leave without pay and suspension. The employee and supervisor signatures must be on the Time and Attendance Record for each payroll period to certify that the time recorded is accurate.
Yes. However, you must be paid a weighted overtime average for hours worked in the part-time position. The weighted overtime average includes earnings from both the full-time and part-time position.
You will be required to track hours for the full-time and part-time position separately and must report these hours to your supervisor on a weekly basis using the Student and Wage Employee Time Sheet.
Yes. Under current policy, as an alternative to cash payments for overtime hours worked, a supervisor may choose to offer their full-time non-exempt employees the option of receiving overtime leave. If the employee is offered overtime leave, he/she may then choose either to receive cash payment for overtime hours worked or receive overtime leave as compensation. Overtime leave is issued at a rate of one and one-half times the hours worked.
Additional information and stipulations pertaining to the Overtime Leave provision are available in JMU Policy 1303 – Provisions for Granting Overtime & Compensatory Leave.