Ask an employer why a position is exempt and the answer is usually a title, a salary, or a shrug — 'they're a manager,' 'they're salaried,' 'they've always been exempt.' None of those is a legal answer. Exemption requires salary basis, salary level, and a duties test measured against what the person actually does — and misclassification means back overtime for every week, every incumbent, across the look-back period.
This file documents the answer per position: the salary basis checks (including the partial-day docking trap), the current threshold math, a duties table for all five major exemptions with an evidence section that demands real time percentages and named decisions, consistency checks across departments, and a decision record with a standing review date.
Who should use this decision file
- Employers with salaried 'managers,' 'coordinators,' and 'administrators' never formally tested
- HR teams responding to DOL threshold changes
- Owners about to promote someone into a salaried role
- Anyone whose exempt employees have started tracking their hours
What it helps prevent
- Misclassification liability: back overtime for every affected week, times every incumbent
- 'Salaried means exempt' folklore driving classification
- Manager titles with no management duties behind them
- Improper salary deductions quietly destroying the salary basis
- Reclassification scrambles when thresholds move
What’s inside
- Part 1 — Position Snapshot
- Part 2 — Salary Basis Test
- Part 3 — Salary Level Test
- Part 4 — Duties Test (the one that fails)
- Part 4a — Duties Evidence
- Part 5 — Comparison and Consistency
- Part 6 — Decision and Review
Before you process payroll, terminate, classify, deduct, or respond to a claim, get the decision reviewed.
Faulkner HR Solutions helps Texas employers, nonprofits, municipalities, and growing businesses fix the people systems behind recurring workplace problems. If this resource raised a risk flag, do not guess your way through the next step.