Lifehacker: You most likely get paid in one of two ways: a salary (a fixed amount of compensation paid out in regular intervals) or hourly (a wage per hour). About 55.7% of all workers in this country are paid hourly, meaning they qualify for overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours per week (salaried employees are “exempt” from this rule and don’t get overtime pay if they work more hours).
4 comments:
The world of a consistent salary is still unknown to me so it's interesting to hear about what needs to be thought about in regards to salary. Switching from salaried to hourly is interesting to me but more specifically the benefits that are required for each payment style. If an employer is switching employees to hourly under the circumstance that they should be paid for their overtime, employers are then given the opportunity to decrease the amount of benefits given to the worker. I can understand a lack of benefits when you have non permanent employees but if a company is employing someone for a planned extended period of time they should guarantee benefits no matter the payment method. But it is just assumed that if you are an hourly employee you might not be a permanent member of a company and is just hired on for the time being to complete a task.
It's important for people to weigh both benefits and drawbacks when deciding whether to take or stay in a job. In this economy, it's crazy that your salary can shift so suddenly. People want stability and predictability. Unfortunate for me considering the career field I have chosen. I hope I will be able to have some stability and security in my life. Perhaps I will start a lighting business rather than work for someone else. However, that is a LOT of work in an of itself, and not to be underestimated. I thought this article was very helpful and insightful. It's so right on the importance of documentation! That applies to a lot of things in life. Going through the "he said, she said" is very unprofessional. It's nicer to just have a concrete piece of evidence of what was communicated.
I think opening with the general benefits of hourly over salary was a good way to start the article since it’s looking at it from a perspective of somebody who had a salary who is now going hourly. I think the adjustment would be hard if you’ve been doing salary a long time and suddenly have to document everything and change over tangential problems like health care, insurance, taxes, etc. I think salary jobs are only better if you’ve climbed the ladder of your workplace and have a large salary that can’t be beaten by hourly. However the nature of the work is also important to consider because if you are usually overworked and do overtime then hourly is probably more dignified than salary—again unless your salary is out the roof. It also depends on what state you’re in and how the livable wage competes against minimum wage.
Like many people my age (I think and hope), I’ve held plenty of hourly jobs but never a salaried position. I learned a lot of new things from this article. I never knew that you could be non-exempt from making overtime, for example. It seems unfortunate that workers are vulnerable to changes in pay at any time, be it in rate, salary, or method of pay in the first place. With the rise in the non-exempt threshold coming up this next year, I guess it’s more important than ever for salaried employees to know what to do if they are switched to hourly. However, there are, of course, a lot of factors to consider, and either way might be better for you. Overall, of course this change in the non-exempt threshold will help more people than it will hurt, but it’s still unfortunate that it gives companies a chance to change some employees from salary to hourly at their loss.
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