Question #1: Hourly vs. Salaried — What’s the Difference?
As remodelers, trade contractors or other service providers we would include in our answers, “You don’t have to pay overtime for over 40 hours.” Right? Yes, sometimes, BUT! The rules are misused and abused but if they aren’t followed the penalties can be career-ending! More later . . .

Question #2: What’s wrong with the daily time/job cost sheet shown?
Well, not much, just about $4,250 a year that you will owe the worker IF you don’t show that a 30-minute lunch break was taken during the day. Otherwise, starting at 8 a.m. and quitting at 4:30 p.m. is 8.5 hours and without lunch you would owe for 30 minutes of overtime. It would amount to over $4,000 per year for an $18 carpenter with burden and this would be for everyone whose time sheet doesn’t show a lunch break.

Question #3: Is it better to have people report to the job to start the day?
Abso-youbetchya-lutely. If you tell you crews to be at the office in the morning for assignment, be ready to pay them from the time they are told to report until they get to the job ready to start. There are some exceptions to this but be sure of yourself.

And Question #1, what’s the difference between an hourly and a salary pay? A lot of us think that being on salary means no overtime; for that to be true, the employee needs to be what is called “exempt.” The exemptions are well defined and straightforward as Executive, Administrative, Professional and Outside Sales. The details of each can be found on the U.S. Department of Labor Web site, (http://www.dol.gov/csa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs17.htm) or from the Web site www.dol.gov/esa, look for “FairPay Fact sheet by Exemption Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The most apropos exemption for our industry is Administrative. To be exempt as Administrative, they must meet ALL of the following tests: 1) be compensated on a salary at not less than $455 per week; 2) their primary duty must be the performance of office or nonmanual work related to the management of general business operations of the employer or the employers’ customers and; 3) their primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.

Many medium to large remodeling companies I know can qualify a field supervisor or project manager. Many of the smaller companies with whom I am familiar, the field manager who wears tools, probably will not qualify. Check it out.