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E-mail me!. Unfortunately, I can’t answer every question, but I do try to do as many as I can. To increase your chances of getting your question answered, please limit yourself to two-three reasonably sized paragraphs and try to figure out what your real problem is. Punctuation and capitalization are pluses.
All HR people are evil, it’s in our job description. Or at least, that seems to be the prevailing theory. In reality, there’s just more going on behind the scenes than most people know. I’m here to demystify your Human Resources department and tell you just why you worked your tail end off all year and still got a 1.7 percent bonus.
Hi!
You say in the end of the article “If your employees are nonexempt, you do have to pay them by the hour for their work (and pay overtime, when applicable)”.
I was not aware that nonexempt employees have to be paid by the hour. I thought you could be nonexempt and salaried, or am I missing something?
You can be non-exempt and salaried but when you hit 40 hours you still have to be paid overtime for anything above.
Which means you still have to track hours.
it’s a ridiculous designation and I would advise companies not to do it.
Hi Eric,
Salaried can be paid exempt and non exempt. Exempt means not owed any additional pay if working more than 40 hours a week, non-exempt needs to be paid OT after 40.
Exactly. It’s only a nice thing for the employee if they should happen to work less than 40 hour in a week.
You should be looking at results and not monitoring minute-by-minute productivity.
This. Also what you said about people working in different ways. I am perfectly able to concentrate for long periods of time (especially when I’m writing), but it works a lot better when I’m at home and comfy on the couch than in a hard office chair with fluorescent lights glaring down. Lucky for me, my new job lets me do that sometimes. 🙂
My best work time is first thing in the morning. My ideal schedule would be starting at 6:00. I can get SO MUCH DONE at that time.
My husband works best late afternoon. We both work at home and so he drives me nuts in the morning when I’m trying to get all my work done and he’s sitting at the kitchen table building things with Legos. (Not joking here!).
But I’m passed out cold at 10:00 and he works until 2:00 a.m.
“The theory is, the energy to resist temptation detracted from their ability to focus on the task.”
Supposedly, they’re adults. They’re supposed to have grown mature enough to resist those temptations when they have work to do (for which we’re paying). Sorry, this concept is true and great for some, but not others. I spend way too much time dealing with employees who act like children. When they stop acting like children, I’ll stop treating them like children. Whether they’re checking Facebook planning parties, or shopping online, they’re not doing their jobs.
I agree that it is not true for some people. I call these people former employees.
I’m a big believer in in paying enough to attract adults. But, I come from Pharma which tends to have the money to do just that.
Are they getting their work done? That should be the only issue. If someone is a star performer and checks FB and email, so what? The issue is when someone is not doing her job. Then, does it matter why she’s not doing it? Either someone performs or not. Manage that.
evil hr director…not for nothing, but it sounds like your the child. Do hr people have that important human emotion called empathy? Or do some of them lack it? Like sociopaths? And I am so serious when I ask this. I am beginning to find the behavior of some hr people…..disgustingly fascinating. I have a new found,ummm,I don’t how you would describe it…wonderment? If that’s a word,for hr workers. I could never,ever do that job,and what makes someone want to do it? I am a very inquisitive person,and very serious.
You must live in a world where all those over 18 act like mature adults. I don’t think you realize that many adults are about as mature as 12 year olds. The rules are suppose to apply to everyone except them. I have multiple union employees who talk on their cellphones, surf the internet, chat about what club they are going to and many other things that have NOTHING to do with their job. If employee conducted themselves like adults you wouldn’t need a supervisor, an assistant manager, a general manager, a director and an HR department to ensure they do the job they are getting paid for.