Because they are not really managers, more like senior flunkies. Corporate tells them exactly how to do their job and no exceptions are allowed. Walmart sets the number of hours and what positions a store manager is allowed to schedule from the HQ in Arkansas.
And Walmart pays the wages and benefits for them to do what is dictated. The workers hav e an option on whether or not they are willing to work under the guidelines of the employer.
Still can't see how the Federal government is justified in making the rules and throwing a huge wrench into the works.
Because they are not really managers, more like senior flunkies. Corporate tells them exactly how to do their job and no exceptions are allowed. Walmart sets the number of hours and what positions a store manager is allowed to schedule from the HQ in Arkansas.
I think you have no idea of what you are talking about. Under your reasoning, no one but the VP’s and up in any organization could be considered salaried and everyone else would be subject to hourly pay and OT. Is that what you are actually proposing?
There are rules regarding who can be classified as “Exempt”- salaried not subject to OT and those who must be classified as “Non-Exempt” - hourly and subject to OT.
http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html
Having to be accountable to the senior management of a company in terms of enforcing company standards and policies and controlling employee schedules as to not over (or under) schedule workers or pay unnecessary overtime per what the senior management mandates is absolutely the job of a salaried manager or supervisor. Just because they don’t have the authority to create and enforce their very own policies of their own choosing or the ability to have the final say on things like budget and setting corporate policies, the amount of hours and OT that they are responsible for, doesn’t make them a “flunky”.
The days of making it up on bonus are long gone.
Yes, a lot of companies have eliminated or reduced bonuses. But IMO no employer should be forced to pay bonuses (unless part of a signed employment agreement) or yearly COL increases, a guaranteed part of compensation. I’ve worked for companies both as an hourly and as a salaried employee that didn’t give any sort of bonus or any guaranteed yearly increases. I worked for a company for several years where I got excellent/outstanding yearly performance evaluations but because of budgeting restraints or economic down turns, didn’t get much or any increase in some years was just told “great job” and “thanks” (yea! I get to keep my job instead of my job being eliminated)
And at my previous employer (a job far below my previous employment in middle management and paid a salary, a job I had to take because I’d been out of work for a year and half and was just grateful to finally get back to work in a full time job), where my position was classified as non-exempt - hourly with a standard 37 hour work week, the owners of the company then changed our standard work hours to 40 hours per week but then they adjusted our hourly rate down so that we would still make the same weekly wage, telling us “this isn’t really a pay decrease because you are still taking home the same amount”.
Of course a lot of us called this BS as now we were working 3 hours more per week but still being compensated the same as when we’d been working 37 hours per week. It sucked but was “legal” and they actually told us “don’t like it – find another job”. After several months of searching, I finally found a much better job, a salaried job more in line with my skills and experience. And lot of my co-workers also left at around the same time I did. A company that does not fairly compensate their workers, is not competitive in the market place will lose their good and qualified workers to their competitors, much to their eventual disadvantage.
Salaried is just a convenient way to do paychecks with the PTO and attendance requirements at most places anymore.
I for one would never want to go back to being a non-exempt/ hourly paid employee.
For one thing I didn’t like the constrictions of being a non-exempt hourly employee. Being hourly and being limited to only working 40 hours per week as scheduled as to not be paid OT, having my working hours strictly monitored down to the very minute, also meant that I can’t work put in the extra time to work on and finish projects that gives me the opportunity to shine and advance. In my present salaried position, I often do research for work and answer emails off hours and I like being able to do so even if I’m not strictly compensated for it or paid OT for it.
Also being a salaried employee means that when our company shuts down/closes for the day because of a bad weather event, or as happened last year, a fire that shut us down for several days, being salaried, unlike our hourly associates, I didn’t have to cover my lost time out of my PTO bank.
At my present job as a salaried employee, I also have a good amount of flexibility and the ability with a company lap top to work from home when sick or for things like when having to be at home for work being done at my house, etc., not having to use my PTO time as I have pretty much a virtual office at home. And if we have a departmental lunch or an off site meeting, I’m not required to account for my time, unlike my hourly direct reports who have to record and have approved that they “worked” through their lunch as to not have their automatic unpaid hour lunch deducted.
Being salaried also means that I am guaranteed to be paid my weekly salary regardless of the number of hours I actually worked. On the up side that means that if I work less than my standard 40 hours per week, I still must be paid my full salary (unless under an FMLA leave or being a new hire or terminating my employment mid-week without working a full week). I do have to cover legitimate missed work time out of my PTO bank in full or half day increments but on the other hand, on the up side, if I get to work an hour late because of traffic or have to leave work an hour early because of a non work related appointment, I’m not expected to cover that lost time in less than full or half day increments, at least not where I work (some companies do it differently), with PTO as it is assumed that I’m working at least and often more than 40 hours per week on average. Of course abuses in that flexibility, salaried workers who continually abuse their flexibility and who in more weeks than not are actually working less than their 40 hours and as a result are not meeting their job requirements, goals and objectives, this becomes a disciplinary issue for their managers to address.