October 2011 Tip of the Month

Fair Labor Standards Act Overtime Provisions: Are You in Compliance?

Creating and maintaining a culture for Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) compliance can be compared to obtaining a regular dental check-up, or a tune-up on your car. You can be certain that the resources you spend on prevention will pay off in the long run!

FLSA compliance includes more than just paying minimum wage and overtime. Employers should ensure that company policies and procedures encourage accurate timekeeping and provide a system for employees to report timekeeping problems or complaints.

The Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is responsible for enforcing the FSLA has been ramping up efforts to ensure that businesses are in compliance.

Since Fiscal Year 2000, the WHD has recouped more than $1.25 billion in back wages for nearly two million workers. For Fiscal Year 2007, they recouped $220,613,703 in back wages for 300,000+ workers — the highest amount ever collected. Of that $220+ million, $163,391,549 was for overtime alone. None of the amounts reported include the penalties assessed against employers.

The most common types of violations are:

(1) Payment of straight time for overtime hours,

(2) Recordkeeping violations, and

(3) Non-payment for all hours worked.

Additional examples of FLSA overtime provision violations committed by employers in Idaho are listed below:

1. Employer fails to include bonus and commission payments when calculating an employee’s rate of pay for overtime.

Many employers are not aware that bonus and commission payments need to be included when calculating the rate of pay for overtime purposes. For example, an employee earns $100 in commission pay during one workweek. The employee’s regularly wage is $10 per hour and the employee has worked a total of four hours overtime or 44 hours during the workweek. To obtain the base wage used to calculate overtime, add the $100 in commission to the total amount of regular pay earned for that workweek and divide the total by 40

Regular earnings at $10 per hour:            $400

Commission earned:                                   $100

Total pay for this workweek:                      $500

Divide by regular work week:                     40 hours

Base wage used to calculate OT:              $12.50 X time & 1/2

2. Employer’s policy prohibits an employee to work overtime so employer does not pay overtime rates when earned.

Employers commonly draft handbook provisions that prohibit employees from working overtime unless the time is specifically authorized in advance. Although this type of policy may be a good way to control labor costs, it will not discharge an employer’s responsibility to pay overtime for any hours actually worked in excess of 40 in a workweek -- regardless of whether or not the overtime hours were authorized according to the policy.

3. Employer misclassifies a position as exempt.

If a position has been classified as exempt, the job responsibilities must meet all of the tests in order to qualify. This is perhaps the most complex category of violation, mainly because an employee’s job title will not control the outcome of an investigation. During an investigation, past and present employees are interviewed to determine the duties actually performed. If, for example, an exempt manager frequently performs the duties of an hourly employee when the business is shorthanded; this could destroy the exempt from overtime status.

If you have questions regarding FLSA overtime provisions or would like a professional consultant to help you determine whether or not you are in compliance, please contact Weaver & Associates. We are ready to provide you with assistance and support!

TIPS May 2011

“The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph…”M. Phillips

Does Your Sales Team Have the Umph?

In sales, the critical “umph” factor often comes down to good training – is your sales team trained to be as successful as possible?  Weaver & Associates offers comprehensive sales training to teams that sell products as well as services.  Some of the factors most critical to developing sales success include attitude, approach, preparation, sales cycle understanding, product and benefit knowledge, good closing technique and effective follow up.

A sales person needs to know how important they are to the company.  After all, the company has put them in charge of its greatest asset – the customer! Everything else in the company, including research, development, promotion, analysis, won’t survive if the sales person doesn’t close sales!

What are some of the key elements of effective selling? Active listening, a commitment to solving customer problems, looking for ways to add value, being trustworthy and being competent – are al fundamental to the sales process.  Good sales people think in term of generating positive choices for their customers. They know what the competition offers and how their products and services exceed those of others in the same market space.

Knowing what to listen for to close a sale is critical, too. When the customer has arrived at their decision, the sales person has to create a path through the final steps of the sale. This is not the time to leave a customer floundering.  And finally, that oh-so-critical follow up should consist of friendly check-ins to ensure satisfaction.  Once a sale is made, a relationship has formed too, and customers need to know the company values them beyond the day of the sale.

Weaver & Associates believes that proper understanding of the sales process provides opportunities for most companies to see improvements in the bottom-line quickly. If you’d like to learn more about the Weaver & Associates sales training program, give us a call!

Onboarding – How Is Your Organization Integrating New Employees?

As hiring starts to pick up, it’s a great time to start looking at your onboarding process. Companies sometimes learn the hard way that retaining new talent and getting recently hired employees up to maximum effectiveness quickly is not always easy or guaranteed.  Designing and implementing a solid onboarding or orientation program can actually reduce employee turnover at 6 months by a staggering amount by over 50% in a recent study of a multi-national company.

A good onboarding program should be more than 4 hours of mind-numbing paperwork and a review of “what can get you fired here” by a member of the Human Resource team. The onboarding process should make new hires feel that they are part of the larger organization and that they are important. Also, after an orientation, a new hire should feel like they understand the history and culture of the organization and how to get things done in their new work environment. Kevin Wheeler of Global Learning Resources refers to this as” building roots from the beginning.”

Recommended for inclusion in a good onboarding program are several components. First, make sure the process is at least somewhat fun and engaging. Next, senior managers should be involved in presenting information about the company. The CEO should provide meaningful input – even if it is in a video message designed specifically for the onboarding process. Senior-level corporate officials should be involved in informing new employees about the organization’s values, goals, and how and why key decisions have been made. With this information, recruits will feel much more confident in how to proceed successfully in their new workplace.

Assigning a mentor and guaranteeing regular check-ins from direct managers during an employee’s first six months is also important. By adding these steps, full productivity can be reached in at least two months less time than the usual 6-12 months it takes a new hire to get up to speed. Meetings with mentors and managers can be informal over lunch or coffee or can be highly structured with goals and feedback built into the process. Either way, new employees can get their questions answered, or can learn to meet expectations effectively from the start.

If you would like help developing an onboarding process, Weaver and Associates has some excellent methods to share that can help you be successful in this important organizational process. 

TIPS – February, 2011

We all know that February is the romance month featuring, of course, Valentine’s Day…but perhaps February should be ‘Friendship Month,’ as well.

 Workplace friendship is a primary topic in a very worthwhile business read, Vital Friends, by Tom Rath. According to researcher Rath and his colleagues at the Gallup Organization, employees with at least one “best friend” at work were seven times more engaged at work, and employees with at least three close friends in the workplace had even higher engagement levels – and reported themselves to be 96% more satisfied with their lives, in general. Without a close friend in the workplace, Gallup results suggest that there is only a 1 in 12 chance of an employee being productively engaged in their work.

 Surprisingly, many employers actively work to prevent workplace friendships and even supply employees with toll-free lines to report “friendship activities” observed during or after work time! Of course, cliques and “belly-ache buddies,” who complain about the employer constantly, are not ideal. However, it looks like promoting friendships at work might pay big dividends in productivity, workplace satisfaction and general positive attitude development.  So, consider making February a friendship month – and get to know and enjoy your co-workers!

 If you’d like ideas for team building activities at work, give Weaver and Associates a call. It’s one of our specialty areas, and we’d love to help you promote stronger relationships at your workplace.