The threshold for “exempt” employees — meaning, those who are not eligible for overtime — moves from $23k/yr to $34k/yr on January 1st, 2020. You may have formerly salaried employees who are back to needing to clock their time because of your need to track overtime. Clocking time may seem like a status hit to some of those workers. How can you stay compliant, while also helping to take some of the sting out of that status change?

Consider the “fluctuating work week” model of compensation.

Using a fluctuating work week model, you can still pay a regular fixed salary to nonexempt employees. You then essentially “gross up” for any overtime worked on a bi-weekly basis.

The win for your workers is that they are guaranteed a minimum consistent bi-weekly paycheck. This makes managing their household bills easier. The win for you is that you help your employees preserve their perceived status as salaried versus hourly. Yes, they are still keeping track of hours, but they aren’t at risk of having a lower paycheck next week simply because they happen to work slightly less than 40 hours this week.