With class action wage and hour lawsuits on the rise across industries, it is important for employers to familiarize themselves with key exemptions and to make sure that their employees are properly classified. In a BLR webinar titled "Exempt or Nonexempt? How To Avoid the Misclassification Mistakes You Simply Can't Afford To Make," Roy P. Salins, Esq., discussed the available exemptions, including the highly compensation employee exemption.

This exemption, he said, provides a lesser burden for establishing exempt status for someone paid 100,000 or more. Here are the criteria that must be met:

• Paid annual total compensation of $100,000 or more, including a salary of at least $455 per week. Annual compensation of $100,000 may consist of commissions, nondiscretionary bonuses and other incentive compensation earned during the previous 52-week period.
• Primary duty spent on office, non-manual work.
• Customarily and regularly performs at least one of the executive, professional, or administrative duties. For example, an employee may qualify as an exempt highly compensated executive if he or she customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more other employees, even though he/she fails to satisfy all the executive exemption elements.

Roy P. Salins, Esq., is a senior associate Labor and Employment Practice Area of Vedder Price PC. Based out of the firm's New York office, Salins's practice includes all aspects of litigation in federal and state courts, administrative agencies, and in arbitrations before FINRA and the AAA. Salins also devotes a large part of his practice to counseling clients in all areas of labor and employment law, compliance with federal and state nondiscrimination and wage statutes, and issues relating to reduction in force, employee compensation, benefits, staffing, hiring, discipline and discharge. He can be contacted at rsalins@vedderprice.com.