Avoid misapplying administrative exemption. (FLSA).(Fair Labor Standards Act)(Brief Article)

Properly classifying employees is always tricky. Back pay and penalties for misclassifying hourly workers as salaried workers exempt from overtime can be steep for employers under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state law.

According to Attorney Timothy J. Long, a partner with the California-based law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, many employers misapply one exemption in particular: the administrative exemption. In fact, it's the number-one exemption that employers tend to abuse. Long says that employers sometimes forget that an administrative employee is not the same classification of employee as a clerk or an office worker. "Likewise, just …