As a software developer I haven’t known an hourly wage for about 15 years. Any time I talk about working late or my buddies talk about getting overtime it’s like we’re from different planets.
Since I’ve been an exempt employee I’ve been fortunate enough to regularly work 40 hours and only very, very rarely work anything excessive. But that’s certainly not true for all exempt employees I know.
I’ve seen it spun as salary being used to protect employees, but I can’t for the life of me see how not getting paid based on the time you work could possibly be good for anyone but the employer, nor how anyone could ever even think that. Can anyone explain?
Theoretically, it’s to ensure regular pay when workload is unpredictable. So, one week you might work 60 hours and another 20, but still get a guaranteed amount of money.
For some reason, employers don’t tend to see it that way.
At least in some cases, getting paid by the hour rewards inefficiency. By taking twice as long to do the same job, you get paid twice as much. This is good neither for the employer nor for the harder-working, more efficient employees.
I think many employers consider hourly workers as expendable. If business is good you hire more hourlies or give the ones you have more hours. But if business is slow you drastically cut their hours and let a bunch of them go. Not much predictability for the employee.
As a salaried employee you know that unless you are laid off or fired you will make X dollars per year. That income is predictable, and usually comes with benefits not offered to hourly employees. The company treats you as an integral part of the business, and not just a ‘worker’. YMMV.
And, traditionally, the salaried employee comes into the organization at a higher level of pay.
You are a professional, goes the theme, and we are giving you the bigger bucks so you don’t nitpick about hours, because, as a professional, you understand that you *may *work *some *OT, but, in the long run, you’re not here for the assembly line work or wages, so, you are paid accordingly.
It’s so you can come in late, take long lunches, call in sick, and still have the same paycheck.
The job I’m currently at, is hourly, and salary at the same time. We are meant to perform the hours required of us, no more, no less. If we work less, we either put in for sick or vacation time to cover those hours, or it is deducted from the paycheck. If we work more it is not added to the paycheck, but our supervisor can, if they feel like it, give comp time for the extra hours worked. They mostly don’t feel like it. They do allow negative sick time if you have gone over your limit, until you earn more, but they don’t let people take advantage of it.
On salary, if you miss a day of work or cut out at 3 on Friday, you get paid the same. Hourly, you lose money unless you have paid sick days. I miss salary. I get two unpaid sick days per year. I don’t even know what that means. Hourly can be frustrating when you have a kid that gets sick at random times. Saving up for vacation? Sorry dad my tummy hurts so you only get half pay this week.
Its a risk control mechanism. When getting paid by the widget or hour the employee carries the risk of not having enough work presented to him to meet a defined quota of desired hours (usually 40).
The employer takes on the burden of this risk and offers a weekly, monthly or annual salary that he agrees to pay no matter if the work is there or not. By removing the risk from the employee the employer hopes to make the job look more attractive and get a better selection of recruits.
He might use this risk mechanism to his advantage by getting extra work from the employee for free or he might be able to offer a lower salary vs offering a higher piecemeal payment.
The idea is that you are being at a rate high enough that hourly wages no longer make sense. The work shouldn’t be hourly oriented, i.e., you aren’t expected to produce X widgets per hour, the sum of your work over hours, days, weeks, or longer is measured and accounting by hour is pointless, and the total of your salary should exceed that made by working at a conventional rate for 40 hours a week. That’s the concept, but it doesn’t always apply. In many cases the breakdown is simply white collar vs. blue collar jobs. Other times employers want to take advantage of employees working extra hours on salary while maintaining fixed costs. But in the end, you can decide if you have a choice between jobs where one is hourly and one is salaried. I’d guess most people don’t have such a choice between comparable jobs and simply take the job which looks best outside of the terms of payment.
This generally wouldn’t be legal in the US - generally deductions on exempt staff have to start by the half-day, IE, you can’t cut pay by the single hour. If you kept records of time worked over 40 hours in the US you probably would have the basis for an overtime wage lawsuit.
The ironic thing is the people I know who work the most wildly varied hours week to week are all waged employees. I can see a farm hand getting $x per week for whatever needs to be done. But I have a friend who does tile and may get paid for 80 hours this week and 0 next week while I’ll probably work 42 each.
For me being salaried is about being more in control of my time and not concerning myself with what jealous cow-orkers might think. I can come late, leave early take a long lunch or log into the Straight Dope all morning. If I get my assignments done on time, in budget and my customer is happy then I can say screw you to people who think they are my timekeeper.
I made much more money as a per hour contractor but it wasn’t worth it because I was always working, health care sucked and I moved a lot. For me working for an hourly wage was a young guys gig, not something you wanted to continue doing in middle age. Increased personnel time and freedom to be treated as an adult by the company is how I chose to work it; I can’t understand salaried people who let the company walk all over them.
Salary and exempt are two different things; if I understand the American usage correctly, I’ve had jobs where I was salaried (i.e., I got the same base amount every month, the same amount for “doing my job” whether that month I’d worked 6 days or 24) but not exempt (I still got holiday bonuses and overtime where applicable), and others where I was both (the situation described in the OP).
And not every position where you’re salaried comes with flexible hours, either of the kind where the employer expects people to streeeeeetch their working hours or of the kind where the employee can come and go when it’s more convenient so long as the work gets done.
I don’t know of too many (any?) salaried employees that work less than a 40 hr. week. Some work far more (e.g. retail store managers) and I see it as a way for an employer to keep down costs by hosing the employee. Yes, you worked 65 hours this week but be happy - you’re management!
My father used to “work” about 55 hours a week, or at least that’s what the hours on his time card showed. In fact, he probably worked only 40 and spent 2-3 hours a day reading the paper, loafing, etc. The employer knew this and essentially condoned it. Then they made him salaried at essentially the same pay and just worked his 40 hours and everybody was just as happy. So salary freed him from the time clock.
Oh, the bliss of knowing how much you’d be paid each and every week. At this point I’d sell my soul for that. I own a retail business and so currently I receive neither a salary or a regular hourly wage. What I get depends entirely on sales each month.
The store’s surviving but the unpredictability is exhausting. And similar to fubaya’s example of a sick kid throwing things off, every single time there’s the least little bit of slack in the budget a tire will blow or I’ll get a toothache, or my son has a sudden school related expense.
Before opening my business I worked in the same industry in both hourly and salaried positions. With salary I worked over 40 hours many weeks, but never to a truly exploitative degree.
If I get my assignments done on time, in budget and my customer is happy then I can say screw you to people who think they are my timekeeper. 