Author: Jason

Executive Order: a rule or order issued by the president to an executive branch of the government and having the force of law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order

Regardless of your opinion on executive orders, they are a part of our government. I recently found out about a recent executive order enacted by President Obama. It changes exempt and non-exempt employment for salary employees.

On the graph on the left you can see number of executive orders from previous Presidents.

Some people see this as a good thing. Basically the number is $47,476 per year. If you make less than that you are non-exempt. Non-exempt from overtime. This could prevent places like Walmart from hiring managers at less yearly salaries and requiring them to work more than 40 hours. This also means for other jobs that don’t operate on a 40 hour work week that it would change how they operate daily.

I have worked in IT since I left the Army and not once did I only work around a 8-5 clock schedule. Now, as of December 1st, 2016, I will be required to clock in for day, out for lunch, and out for day. This means I must use my 8 hours daily to a higher efficiency. I don’t have a problem with being more efficient. I just know it will lead to me not doing work after hours. I will have to get approval for any overtime. I am sure it will be granted if the need is there.

At a previous job this would have been nice because I was on call every other night and every other weekend. This would mean that I would be paid over time for any hours after 40 in a week. There was almost no time that I was on call time that didn’t require some time. I always said that it was much cheaper for IT personnel to be salary because it would break the bank for the company. Personally, I would prefer a static paycheck than one that changes. It is much easier to build a budget.

I am grateful now for my job and I still love what I do. I just see that nation-wide in the IT community it will change things. There will be stricter guidelines for what is truly meant as an after-hours call to IT for an “emergency.” I am curious what my other fellow IT friends think about this. If you are a one-man operation it doesn’t impact you. If you work in a corporate environment it impacts you deeply. Because my boss is a manager of several employees he is still considered exempt and he stated today that he would have to pick up more slack after hours and on the weekend.

Check out the article above that list the stipulations for this change and let me know what you think? I am curious to hear from other industries as well.

For those who will be getting a raise to put them over the minimum $47,476 per year, I am sure you are grateful. How’s that for a national minimum wage? It’s not exactly jumping up from the current $7.25/hr (Current as of 11/17/16), but it does require companies to take a hard look at staffing needs.