Can we make exempt employees non-exempt? 06-07-2006

We employ a manager and an assistant manager at each of our larger stores. We recently were audited by the Wage & Hour Department and our assistant managers were on the borderline for exempt status. We re-worked their contract to assure they were meeting the new requirement of 455.00 week salary. Now the assistant managers are taking advantage of this by working under their contract hours by 10-15 hours biweekly. Can we change their contract to read hourly rate and overtime rate rather than guaranteeing them salary?

Rita Risser replies:

You can always make exempt employees non-exempt and pay them overtime for overtime work. You also could fire them (after warning) for not working their full hours.

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