Compensating Job Duties Separately to Avoid Overtime Pay
An employer has employees who are paid on an hourly basis. The employer wants to use its employees for additional business activities, but wants to avoid paying overtime. Can the employer use the same employees in two different job capacities, compensated separately, to pay a regular hourly rate instead of overtime? For example, let's say this is a restaurant with a catering business. Can the employer separately hire its restaurant workers to work at a catered event, but not have the hours at the catered event counted toward overtime?
Re: Compensating Job Duties Separately to Avoid Overtime Pay
Under the FLSA and similar state laws, overtime is due to a non-exempt employee whenever that employee works more than forty hours in a single seven-day work week for a single employer. Unless the employer's business is such that, as confirmed by the company's lawyer, the employer is exempt from the FLSA and similar state laws, the employer should pay overtime.