Human Resource Blog

Exempt Status in Washington

	Compensation
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One of our new Washington outside sales people has asked us if he can receive overtime pay. I don’t think he can because he qualifies for exempt status. Please clarify.

The Fair Labor Standards Act is the federal Act that applies to employees in all states across the country. This particular Act is in place in order to ensure that qualifying employees receive at least minimum wage for the hours that they work and that they receive overtime pay for pay hours that they work in addition to a 40-hou work week. The overtime pay should be dispensed at a rate of time-and-a-half of the normal rate of pay.

There are certain exemptions when it comes to which employees need to be paid overtime pay ad which employees do not. However, employees that are outside sales people will generally qualify for exempt status.

In order for the employee to qualify for exempt status, the outside sales person needs to meet certain criteria, including the following:

·         The employee should work outside of the office, such as on the road making calls to business associates and potential clients

·         The employee’s primary job duty needs to involve bringing in more business and sales for the company and for maintaining relationships with clients

·         If the outside sales person does not work in the main office, but works from a home office, the outside sales person may not qualify for exemption. Home offices are considered to be company property, even if they are not owned by the company.

Also, many contractors will receive exempt status.

If an employee works for part of his or her time at promotional events for the company, but works in a different capacity for the rest of the time, the employee may not be consider to be an outside sales person. In order for an employee that works promotional events to achieve exempt status, the employee still needs to work primarily in sales during the time that he or she is not attending to promotional event duties. CB