Handling "Hybrid" Employees For Overtime Purposes

Currently, for various reasons employers find themselves with too few employees. Employers have had to require employees to perform double-duty to fill empty positions. That can cause problems from a federal overtime standpoint. Some of the major issues include whether employees lose their overtime exempt status when they take on new responsibilities and how their overtime is calculated if their change in job duties makes them eligible for overtime.

Employees that are classified as exempt are never entitled to overtime, no matter how many hours they work. Nonexempt employees are entitled to overtime if they work more than forty hours in a week. An employee is either exempt or nonexempt, not both.

A key factor in determining whether an employee is properly classified as an exempt employee is the employee’s primary duty. The employee’s primary duty must be exempt work or the employee cannot be considered an exempt employee. In making that determination for employees who are performing two or more jobs for the same employer, all of the employee’s duties must be combined and analyzed in determining whether the employee’s primary duty is exempt or nonexempt work.

If an employee covering multiple positions is entitled to overtime, a question may arise about how the overtime is calculated if different positions come with different rates of pay. In that situation, federal law requires that the employee’s regular hourly rate of pay be determined by dividing the employee’s total earnings for all jobs during the week by the total number of hours worked at all jobs for that week. That number is the employee’s regular hourly rate for the week. Depending on the employee’s situation, 50% or 150% of the employee’s regular hourly rate is then paid for any hours worked over forty in that week.

There are several other overtime issues that could arise when an employer requires an employee to assume duties for other positions. That’s especially true if a large number of employees are being required to do so. Employers must be very careful about how they handle such situations to avoid violating federal overtime law.