Category
Department of Labor
DOL Increases Salary Level for Exempt Employees (coming July 1, 2024)
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued its much-anticipated final rule raising the salary threshold for employees to be exempt from federal overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The new rule significantly increases the minimum salary requirement for executive, professional, and administrative employees, and ...
Checklist of 2024 New Year HR and Payroll updates
It’s almost 2024, so now is the time to review and update your company’s HR and payroll practices and documents for the new year. With 2023 ending, there are several human resources and payroll items to review and update for January. Here is Consultstu’s 10 point HR and Payroll checklist for 2024 – start now......
Are Remote Employees Covered by FMLA?
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a field assistance bulletin (FAB) on February 9, 2023, to clarify the Family and Medical Leave Act’s (FMLA’s) hours-of-service eligibility requirement for teleworkers, as well as the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to nonexempt remote workers. On the same day, the DOL also exp...
How to Calculate FMLA Leave When a Holiday Falls in a Week
An important part of compliance is to correctly count the number of days that an employee is entitled to take when they qualify for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). To help employers, the DOL just released an Opinion Letter that gives employers clear guidance on how to calculate FMLA entitlement under the FMLA......
DOL Updates Minimum Wage and FMLA Posters in April 2023
Employers must take note that the federal government has been busy updating several mandatory workplace posters. In April 2023, two posters were updated. First, the Department of Labor (DOL) released an updated “Minimum Wage” poster to include revised information concerning employees’ rights under the PUMP Act (Providing Urgent Maternal Prote...
“Highly Compensated Employee” Exemption Requires Payment on a Salary Basis
A highly-paid offshore tool pusher worker sued Helix Energy Solutions because he was not paid overtime. He was considered exempt under the “highly compensated employee” exemption (Wage and Hour law) but was paid on a day rate, not a salary. In late February, the Supreme Court decided that the worker must be paid overtime because......
Salary Reduction for an Exempt Employee: What are the rules?
At Consultstu, this is probably the most common question we receive from employers. The federal Department of Labor (and the Fair Labor Standards Act) states that exempt employees must be paid a fixed salary that cannot be reduced based on the quality and quantity of the employee’s work. To qualify for an exemption, employees must......
OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring COVID-19 Vaccines Blocked by Supreme Court
On Thursday, January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court issued 2 decisions related to the Biden Administration’s push to require vaccines against COVIA-19 for the U.S. workforce. First, the Court stopped the enforcement of OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that mandated that employers with 100 or more employees to require vaccines, or r...
Employee not responding to FMLA notices, loses FMLA protection
Good news for employers! A recent Oregon court case demonstrated the importance of following the required FMLA notices to eligible employees and the consequences to an employee that ignored the notices to his detriment. Employees that fail to follow the employer’s usual and customary notice requirements for requesting FMLA leave, will ordinar...
New COBRA Subsidies in the American Rescue Plan (ARPA)
President Biden has signed the massive American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), which includes a federally-financed COBRA subsidy that is available for up to six months for eligible individuals. The COBRA subsidy will be available beginning on April 1, 2021 and end on September 30, 2021. Further guidance will be coming from the DOL......
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