What 84% of employers are doing during OT rule stalemate
Do we forge ahead with the changes we put in place to comply with the new rule or do we simply revert back to what we were doing before the DOL’s overtime changes?
That’s a question employers everywhere are asking themselves as they wait for the fate of the DOL’s overtime rule to be sealed.
Manta, an online resource for small businesses, recently attempted to find out exactly which route small businesses took.
It asked 1,170 small business owners about their reaction to the blocked overtime law as well as whether they planned to go forward with their firms’ compliance plans as if the injunction didn’t happen.
Classification conundrum
And the survey provided some surprising results.
An overwhelming majority (84%) of small business owners said they plan to go ahead with salary changes or reclassify employees as if the overtime law took effect.
Just 16% of the employers that crafted compliance plans to deal with the new regs won’t implement the changes now that the regs are on hold.
Another surprising find was employers’ feelings toward the delay.
When the OT regs were first introduced, most businesses had very strong opinions about the changes. In the study, however, 61% of small businesses said they were indifferent to the regs being blocked.
The remaining employers were either “relieved” (23%) or “frustrated” (15%) over the delay.
According to Evil HR Lady’s Suzanne Lucas, a simple way to decide how to proceed after the injunction is:
- keep the changes you made for a morale boost if employees welcomed the changes (e.g., they were getting overtime, etc.), or
- return the exempt status of workers you were going to reclassify if they felt demoted/demeaned by it.
