Posted: November 30th, 2016

Is Happy correct that he is in fact eligible for overtime, or is he mistaken?

On December 15, 2016, Snow White, a manager at the Magic Mirror Company, comes to see

you in HR. She has several concerns, and would like your advice with respect to each. She

separated her various concerns by each employee under her supervision:

1. Happy
2. Sleepy
3. Bashful
4. Doc
5. Sneezy

Snow White’s concerns are as follows:

Please proceed under the understanding that the new overtime rule is implemented as originally planned for December 1st (Fair Labor Standards Act, which would change the threshold for overtime pay to $47,500. Salaried workers who make less than that would be eligible for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week)

1. Happy

One of Snow White’s employees (a supervisor named Happy) recently learned that his position is now eligible for overtime. He is very happy – no pun intended – to hear this news, as it can put some additional money in his pocket to help with holiday expenses (His $45,000 salary wasn’t quite cutting it, after taxes and ordinary expenses). Snow White, however, says that she doesn’t have much additional money in her budget to pay overtime. For this reason – she specifically told Happy yesterday that he was not authorized to work overtime, and that he was to leave work at 4:00 pm (an hour early) so as to keep his work hours for the week right at 40 hours. He ordinarily puts in late hours, and it is not uncommon for him to leave the office until 8:00 pm. Such was the case last night. Snow White left the office for a training at about 2:00 and did not return that evening. Happy didn’t think she was serious about her comment regarding overtime, nor was he concerned that the company is tight on cash and unable to pay him. So, he decided to stick around an extra few hours to knock out a project that had been pending for some time. With Snow White out of the office, and not assigning new work to him, Happy was very productive. Snow White came in this morning and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the project was done, only to find out that Happy had to put in the additional time to do so.

Snow White wants to know what she should do with Happy – now and in the

future – about this work hours situation. Is Happy correct that he is in fact

eligible for overtime, or is he mistaken?