How Overtime Pay Changes Could Affect Texas Employers

In the article, "How Overtime Pay Changes Could Affect Texas Employers," featured in TribTalk, Partner Mike Abcarian provides Texas employers advice on how to comply with the minimum salary changes.

1. Increase salaries. If currently exempt employee salaries are near the new minimum, a solution is to simply meet the new salary minimum. If those employees are currently earning $900 a week, it may be easier for the employer to bump them up to $970 a week rather than make other, more drastic changes.
2. Convert employees to hourly pay rates. Employers may choose to convert lower-paid salaried employees to a non-exempt (usually hourly) status and pay them for overtime hours worked. In this scenario, employers may require employees to obtain management approval before working overtime hours in order to keep costs down. But remember, if an employer does this, it still has to pay for all time worked, even if the employee has violated the rules. Employers cannot refuse to pay