As you may have heard, the federal governing policies for wage and salary – The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) – has recently announced changes for overtime eligibility. Unlike the last go around the changes recommended are now final, and will go into effect on January 1, 2020. More specifically, some positions will now be eligible for overtime going forward. Early next week we will notify all individuals who are affected by the change with a personal letter that documents the change.
To prepare for the anticipated change, a number of employees were asked to complete a time study to update their assessment of the kinds of tasks completed and time it took to perform that job. This information is helpful for supervisors to better understand what the people in those particular jobs do, and to better manage the time needed, particularly if overtime was required.
While the legal guidelines around who is eligible for overtime will change for some people, FCC’s policy on overtime will not. As always, overtime (HR209 https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-KD48z5DOn8UlI1TlNYa1BqR2s) must be submitted and approved in advance. In some instances, an advanced request/approval may not be practical. Exceptions such as those should be discussed with your supervisor just to make sure you are clear on expectations. The goal is not to eliminate overtime, but rather to give supervisors – and the agency – a chance to manage the time required to serve our clients and maintain some reasonableness for staff. In some cases this may mean reduced hours at another point in the week to compensate for the required overtime, or it may mean foregoing some tasks at that point in time. If we work together we should be able to make sure we are able to meet the needs of all involved.
If you have any questions at all about the new overtime guidelines or the change for FCC feel free to contact your supervisor or Rich Petro.