Q2 LabSolutions announced that lab employees will be required to work six days a week, not every week, but nearly every week - no exceptions. Who is going to stay at a company requiring six work days where pay is dirt. Once those employees leave, who would be willing to work for a company where six days a weeks is a requirement? Did management really think this through?
They better not be on salary as exempt employees. State labor departments love to fine the hell out of employers that do this, and get back wages for techs, who should be employed as hourly workers.
Exempt professional job duties.
The job duties of the traditional "learned professions" are exempt. These include lawyers, doctors, dentists, teachers, architects, clergy. Also included are registered nurses (but not LPNs), accountants (but not bookkeepers), engineers (who have engineering degrees or the equivalent and perform work of the sort usually performed by licensed professional engineers), actuaries,
scientists (but not technicians), pharmacists, and other employees who perform work requiring "advanced knowledge" similar to that historically associated with the traditional learned professions.
Professionally exempt work means work which is predominantly intellectual, requires specialized education, and involves the exercise of discretion and judgment. Professionally exempt workers must have education beyond high school, and usually beyond college, in fields that are distinguished from (more "academic" than) the mechanical arts or skilled trades.
Advanced degrees are the most common measure of this, but are not absolutely necessary if an employee has attained a similar level of advanced education through other means (and perform essentially the same kind of work as similar employees who do have advanced degrees).
Some employees may also perform "creative professional" job duties which are exempt. This classification applies to jobs such as actors, musicians, composers, writers, cartoonists, and some journalists. It is meant to cover employees in these kinds of jobs whose work requires invention, imagination, originality or talent; who contribute a unique interpretation or analysis.
Identifying most professionally exempt employees is usually pretty straightforward and uncontroversial, but this is not always the case. Whether a journalist is professionally exempt, for example, or a commercial artist, will likely require careful analysis of just what the employee actually does.
