Am I supposed to be paid overtime?

Hi, I’m Innessa Huot and I’m an employment attorney. Most employees, even those that are paid a salary, are required to be paid overtime, and that’s time and a half, when they work more than 40 hours in a workweek. Only certain kinds of employees are exempt from overtime and those are employees that are professionals, which you would think of as doctors or lawyers, and also those that are considered managers.

Now, what we see happen pretty frequently is that an employer will come to an employee, pat them on the back and say, “Congratulations, now you’re a manager and you know we’re even going to pay you a salary,” but then your duties don’t really change all that much. Well, then you’re not truly exempt from overtime.

The way you can really determine whether you are exempt is if you compare yourself and the duties that you have to other hourly non-managerial workers and you ask yourself, are my duties pretty much the same as theirs or do I really have the power to make employment decisions over these workers? Now, if your job is pretty much the same as theirs, then you’re not really exempt from overtime and you should be paid all of these wages going back 3-6 years, depending on what state you worked in.

Give us a call and we’ll weigh all these factors with you, so that you can really understand what you’re entitled to. Thank you so much. Thanks for watching.