I began working in my current position in 2001. Recently, new job descriptions were created for my department and a new job description for my current job was written (which has not yet been attributed to me but it’s the same job). The only differences between the old job description and the new are the job title (Data Specialist to Technical Support Specialist), “Customer Focus” went away and “Interpersonal Skills” appeared, SOX-related duties were removed. The job has never had any management or any other type of oversight responsibilities. The pay grade is the same. The issue is that my current status is exempt, but the status on the new job description is non-exempt. I’ve been keeping tabs on the other jobs of my pay grade in the company and none of them are exempt.
I’ve been doing this job for four years on a non-exempt basis, putting in chunks of overtime when necessary. I come in 1/2 hour early Mon-Thurs nearly without fail, leave an hour or so early on Fridays except when big projects are being worked on when I usually end up staying even later than the norm. I put in a couple of hours from home one Sunday per month doing month-end stuff, check e-mail from home and deal with things that come up after I’ve left work for the day, on my days off, etc. It’s probably also worth mentioning that I’ve been doing much more demanding work than is in the job description (mainly VBA and SAS programming).
I figure I’ve been screwed out of roughly 250 hours of overtime pay (about $7500 gross) over the past two years. I’m not counting the first two years because I was new at the job and it was rarely necessary for me to work late. I talked to my immediate manager about it and he has a meeting scheduled with someone in HR next week. I’m expecting HR to try to weasel out of this. During my performance review last March I was told I wasn’t quite skilled enough to be promoted to the next logical job in the department, but a few months later was told they felt I was now qualified but would not be promoted until after the first of this year because of budget issues. During the discussion with my manager this week I was told I’ll be promoted no later than April.
If HR doesn’t want to compensate me for this overtime somehow, what should I do? Is it worth hiring a lawyer for this? Would the cost of hiring a lawyer negate the amount of money I feel is due me? Could going the lawyer route endanger my job (or future jobs at different companies)? I’m not sure what to do about this if HR doesn’t cooperate.