Watch out. The federal Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is beefing up the number of wage-and-hour investigators responsible for investigating compensation practices to make sure employers are in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and their states’ wage and hour laws. To date, the WHD has already added 150 new investigators to its field offices, and it’s set to hire 100 more.
Employees (and former employees affected by recent layoffs) are increasingly bringing wage-and-hour actions alleging they were misclassified as exempt. Along with heightened WHD enforcement efforts in force, now’s a risky time to make mistakes.
If the WHD’s stepped up efforts aren’t enough to make your organization take notice, consider this: In two recent lawsuits, juries awarded workers $35.6 million and $2.5 million, respectively, finding that their employers—two big-name retailers—misclassified them as managers and unlawfully failed to pay them overtime.
Order this in-depth 90-minute webinar all about how to conduct a thorough self-audit of your overtime exemptions so you don’t find yourself being questioned by workers about exemption classifications or, even worse, defending a multi-million-dollar class action lawsuit. Our experts – both experienced employment law attorneys – will cover the ins and outs of an FLSA overtime exemption self-audit.
You and your colleagues will learn:
- What records you should audit and when
- The key questions your audit should address, including inquiries into salary deductions and predetermined amounts of work and compensation
- Best practices for obtaining accurate information about your workers’ job duties
- How to properly analyze your audit findings, and the essential techniques to use so you maximize audit results and minimize potential legal exposures
- How to remedy exemption and employment relationship misclassifications, as well as resulting issues with overtime pay
This webinar was recorded on Tuesday, November 17, 2009
About Your Speakers:
Allen M. Kato, Esq., is an associate in the San Francisco office of law firm Fenwick & West, LLP. His practice concentrates exclusively on representing management in wage and hour, affirmative action, and equal employment opportunity compliance; unfair competition and trade secret matters; privacy issues; and litigating individual and class action wage and hour, wrongful discharge, employment discrimination, and unfair competition matters before courts and agencies. He also trains managers and HR professionals on a regular basis.
Dan Ko Obuhanych, Esq., is an associate in the Mountain View, California, office of law firm Fenwick & West, LLP. His litigation practice focuses on labor and employment law, litigating unfair labor practice claims, discrimination/retaliation lawsuits, grievance/arbitration matters, and EEOC/DFEH charges. In his counseling practice, Obuhanych advises Fortune 500 companies and small employers on a wide variety of employment and labor issues, including harassment, retaliation, union avoidance, wage and hour issues, independent contractor status issues, and leave and accommodation matters.
Approved for Recertification Credit
This program has been approved for 1.5 recertification credit hours toward PHR and SPHR recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI). For more information about certification or recertification, please visit the HRCI homepage at www.hrci.org.
