Why are some employees salaried and some by the clock?

[bolido2000]

Wouldn't it be better for a company to have all employees on a salary? That way there is no need for overtime pay.

 

[her209]

Some are hourly, by law.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Depends on what they do I imagine and if it's part time or full time... in certain places it's much cheaper to have a large number of people part time and paid by the clock because of other state laws/requirements than fewer people working full time, if that makes sense

 

[conehead433]

If you agree to work on a slaary, unless it is for a large sum of money, you are standing there with a large jar of vaseline and ready to bend over.

 

[bolido2000]

In my company there a bunch of guys that have been with the company 15+ years and they are still paid by the hour. They have been full time all along. They also seem to get the same benefits as me, but the company would pay them OT if needed.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: conehead433
If you agree to work on a slaary, unless it is for a large sum of money, you are standing there with a large jar of vaseline and ready to bend over.

depends on the company.

I wouldn't trade my salary for anything.

for every 45+ hour week, there are ~30 hour weeks. and being able to show up half an hour late every day is a nice bonus.

 

[AUMM]

Originally posted by: loki8481

Originally posted by: conehead433
If you agree to work on a slaary, unless it is for a large sum of money, you are standing there with a large jar of vaseline and ready to bend over.

depends on the company.

I wouldn't trade my salary for anything.

for every 45+ hour week, there are ~30 hour weeks. and being able to show up half an hour late every day is a nice bonus.

I work hourly, and I dont think I could take working extra hours without getting paid time and half... showing up late is never a problem at my place either...

 

[vi edit]

My experience:

You get hourly if your workload varies from time to time and you aren't important enough (or your job isn't important enough) to keep you there all the time and you can be sent home without pay.

You get salary if you serve some essential need to the company and they basically buy your soul for a flat rate each month and pay you that same amount regardless if you work your typical 40 hours a week or the crack the whip and make you work 60 hours a week.

Basically, if they think you are expendible and they don't foresee needing you there in excess of your basic work week, you get hourly.

If they think you'll be called on for working a longer than normal week frequently, they'll salary you.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: AUMM

Originally posted by: loki8481

Originally posted by: conehead433
If you agree to work on a slaary, unless it is for a large sum of money, you are standing there with a large jar of vaseline and ready to bend over.

depends on the company.

I wouldn't trade my salary for anything.

for every 45+ hour week, there are ~30 hour weeks. and being able to show up half an hour late every day is a nice bonus.

I work hourly, and I dont think I could take working extra hours without getting paid time and half... showing up late is never a problem at my place either...

but if you don't work your 40 hours by the end of the week, aren't you losing money out of your paycheck?

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
My experience:

You get hourly if your workload varies from time to time and you aren't important enough (or your job isn't important enough) to keep you there all the time and you can be sent home without pay.

You get salary if you serve some essential need to the company and they basically buy your soul for a flat rate each month and pay you that same amount regardless if you work your typical 40 hours a week or the crack the whip and make you work 60 hours a week.

Basically, if they think you are expendible and they don't foresee needing you there in excess of your basic work week, you get hourly.

If they think you'll be called on for working a longer than normal week frequently, they'll salary you.

I don't agree. I do UNIX hardware/software tech support, which is not (yet) a field where any "expendable" person could be brought in without serious ramp-up and simply hit the ground running. A "Level I" engineer here is more or less equivalent to a "Level II" engineer at several OEMs we deal with, and in fact our front line ends up being a third escalation point in some instances. The company understands that I regularly have conference calls with Fortune 500 companies regarding their mission-critical servers that can last hours beyond my scheduled shift, as well as an oncall rotation for call overflow standby coverage. We are the lifeblood of the organization in that we are the true delivery on the "2-hour break-fix" service contracts once they are sold by the salespeople. In my personal situation, I have also assisted in many instances in our Professional Services division, providing consulting and training to customers as well.

Throughout all that, I'm hourly. I would shoot myself if I was salaried (unfortunately, there's a division of our company that was acquired from another failing firm and it retains its old ways, so their TS guys are salaried regardless of hours or oncall duties). I don't see my being hourly as a reflection of how replaceable I am, though.

I would agree with you, however, that they try to "buy your soul" at a flat rate. Usually they do this by offering more as a salary than they would hourly, with the understanding that if you were hourly, you possibly would make up the difference (and then some?) thru claimed overtime. But that's more of a finance/HR methodology, or gamble on which will keep their employees for less total cost, than an outright statement of your worth to the organization.

 

[vi edit]

I don't agree. I do UNIX hardware/software tech support, which is not (yet) a field where any "expendable" person could be brought in without serious ramp-up and simply hit the ground running. A "Level I" engineer here is more or less equivalent to a "Level II" engineer at several OEMs we deal with, and in fact our front line ends up being a third escalation point in some instances. The company understands that there are conference calls with Fortune 500 companies regarding their mission-critical servers that can last hours beyond my scheduled shift, as well as an oncall rotation for call overflow coverage. We are the lifeblood of the organization in that we are the true delivery on the "2-hour break-fix" service contracts once they are sold. In my personal situation, I have also assisted in many instances in our Professional Services division, providing consulting and training to customers as well.

Expendable may not have been the ideal word, but none the less, in every company I've worked for, employees that are in high turnover positions, or positions that have little to no chance for work outside the limits of normal working hours will almost always be hourly.

Management and "support staff" that are required to be on call or are expected *by the company* to work outside that normal 40 hour work week will almost always be salaried.

By support staff I simply mean support in the most basic of definitions. I'm not limiting it to technical support.

Companies salary employees for the companies advantage. Not the employees.

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

I don't agree. I do UNIX hardware/software tech support, which is not (yet) a field where any "expendable" person could be brought in without serious ramp-up and simply hit the ground running. A "Level I" engineer here is more or less equivalent to a "Level II" engineer at several OEMs we deal with, and in fact our front line ends up being a third escalation point in some instances. The company understands that there are conference calls with Fortune 500 companies regarding their mission-critical servers that can last hours beyond my scheduled shift, as well as an oncall rotation for call overflow coverage. We are the lifeblood of the organization in that we are the true delivery on the "2-hour break-fix" service contracts once they are sold. In my personal situation, I have also assisted in many instances in our Professional Services division, providing consulting and training to customers as well.

Expendable may not have been the ideal word, but none the less, in every company I've worked for, employees that are in high turnover positions, or positions that have little to no chance for work outside the limits of normal working hours will almost always be hourly.

Management and "support staff" that are required to be on call or are expected *by the company* to work outside that normal 40 hour work week will almost always be salaried.

By support staff I simply mean support in the most basic of definitions. I'm not limiting it to technical support.

Companies salary employees for the companies advantage. Not the employees.

No offense taken.

Guess we're just an exception to the approximate rule then 🙂 And of course the company is trying to keep total cost of compensation as low as possible without sacrificing retention--that was the point of my final paragraph.

The main part I took issue with was the determination of salary vs. hourly based on the company's expectation that I would or would not need to claim overtime given my position--it's pretty much guaranteed in my seat, and my executive management has spoken to their awareness of this. Maybe I'm lucky to have the deal I'm in, but put another way, wouldn't a high turnover rate be more likely in a salaried position where employees are not getting full credit for time spent...? 🙂 This is actually the exact situation in that oddball salaried tech support divison I spoke of earlier. About a half dozen resignations in about the last quarter. All have their "reasons" and "opportunities" when asked, but you gotta think there's some commonality between at least some of their decisions.

I'm just saying, the corporate accountants who handle my expense reports, or the one woman who handles the now web-automated payroll for the entire organization, or several other members of our corporate support staff can't honestly be expected to be in the office outside regular business hours on a consistent basis, but they are salaried. So it's not always the criteria.