<story><title>The strategic use of titles to avoid overtime payments</title><url>https://www.nber.org/papers/w30826</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>shagie</author><text>Note that this is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; about exempt workers (which, if you are a software developer making more than $27.63 if paid on an hourly basis or $684 week on a salary basis you are exempt from the FLSA).&lt;p&gt;This is about converting non-exempt workers who would normally be getting overtime pay of 1.5x to exempt workers through titles though the duties don&amp;#x27;t change... which is still against the letter and spirit of the law ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dol.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;dolgov&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;WHD&amp;#x2F;legacy&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;fs17a_overview.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dol.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;dolgov&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;WHD&amp;#x2F;legacy&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;fs17...&lt;/a&gt; ) but many employees that this is targeting aren&amp;#x27;t aware of that.&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    To qualify for the administrative employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:

    The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis (as defined in the regulations) at a rate not less than $684* per week;

    The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers; and

    The employee’s primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
There are similar tests for learned professional, creative professional, and computer, and outside sales.</text></comment>
<story><title>The strategic use of titles to avoid overtime payments</title><url>https://www.nber.org/papers/w30826</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jdlyga</author><text>Outside of the context of avoiding overtime payments, job title inflation is definitely used to help attract and retain employees.  A few decades ago, a director level position was a manager of managers, and usually one of the key decision makers at a firm.  Nowadays, you have many people with &amp;quot;director&amp;quot; in their job title who are team leads or senior individual contributors. It&amp;#x27;s not even really a problem. In fact, it&amp;#x27;s great to have a nice title and makes people feel important. It&amp;#x27;s more about adjusting your expectations of what someone&amp;#x27;s job title is vs what they actually do day to day.</text></comment>