We're thinking of having one of our secretaries handle the internal/desk top support for our office. We are a small firm that pays a quarterly consulting fee to an IT firm. The secretary's time would be split 50/50 between IT and secretary. The secretary would be responsible for all desk top issues, working with the IT firm on servers, upgrades, security, etc. The secretary we have in mind makes approximately $29/hr and will work more than 40 hrs/week most of the time.
Exempt or non-exempt? I'm thinking the non-exempt status for the secretarial duties will keep her in a non-exempt status even with the new IT duties?
Your question is actually more complicated than it looks. There is no set ratio of "exempt" to "non-exempt" duties that determines your classification. Most everyone has some sort of duty, that if it were a full job, would be considered non-exempt. I, for instance, open my own mail and do my own filing. But, this is about 10 minutes a day, so not cause to make me non-exempt.
I did find this list of jobs to help you determine exempt/non-exempt jobs. Isn't the internet fabulous?
Scrolling down I find a link to help for computer related jobs that takes you through a series of questions to help answer your question!
Wow. I'm really impressed now. Of course, being the pessimist that I am, there is probably some disclaimer at the bottom of the page that says, "using this method to determine exemption is not a valid defense in face of an audit."
But, your person is still 50% in a job that is clearly non-exempt, so I would have to advise you to stay on the safe side and keep her classification non-exempt. It's better to be safe than sorry, and I think you'd have a hard time defending a position that was 50% administrative.
But, thanks for asking your question. I've now found a really cool tool. And let's face it, this blog is all about my needs.
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3 comments:
Forget the exempt/non-exempt issues. That seems like a job made for failure. From my perspective, at least, there are two very different skillsets involved and a veritable windshear of demands from different sides.
Wally,
I've got to learn to answer the question that should have been asked, which is not necessarily the question that was asked. You are right. Why are they paying someone $29 an hour to do secretarial work?
Now, if that is more of an administrative assistant role with a lot of requirements, that makes sense, but if it's a traditional secretary role (typing, filing, phone calls), that's a lot of money.
Yeah, $29 an hour makes me wonder who this secretary is sleeping with...
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