In this episode of Beyond Bitewings, Ash and Lynn welcome Paul Edwards to discuss the complexities of the recent ruling concerning exempt employees. They talk about the court decision that allows for a salary raise effective July 1st. The discussion explores strategies for managing salary adjustments, particularly the implications of shifting employees from exempt to nonexempt status and the importance of transparent communication during such transitions.

The conversation also touches on broader HR advice, emphasizing the crucial role of consulting experts in navigating employee classifications accurately. They also discuss the need to manage overtime carefully and the strategic importance of proper employee classification to meet both compliance and business needs. Paul shares insights on the upcoming raise in minimum salary requirements and the varied regional impacts of these changes on businesses. Lynn highlights the need for small business owners to seek professional HR guidance while also recommending additional resources for staying informed and compliant.

To connect with Paul and listen to his podcast, visit: https://www.cedrsolutions.com/hr-podcast/

If you have specific questions about embezzlement or if you'd like to have another question answered on a future podcast, please reach out to the Edwards & Associates team. (https://www.EandAssociates.com)

Key Topics Discussed:

• Court ruling on salary raise
• Challenges of salary adjustment retraction
• Employee status change from exempt to nonexempt
• Importance of transparent communication
• Managing overtime for nonexempt employees
• Evaluating exempt status
• Impact of minimum salary increases
• HR advice for small businesses
• Employee classification and payroll considerations
• Resources for additional HR guidance

Welcome to Beyond by Wings, the business side of dentistry, brought to you by Edwards and Associates, PC. Join us as we discuss how to build your dental practice, optimize your income, and plan for your future. This podcast is distributed with the understanding that Edwards and Associates PC is not rendering legal, accounting, or professional advice. Listeners should consult with their business advisors before acting on any of of the information that is shared. At Edwards and Associates, PC, our business is the business of dentistry. For help or more information, visit our website at enassociates.com. Hello and welcome to another episode of Beyond Bitewings. My name is Ash.

And in today's episode, we are going to be talking about the recent changes regarding the exempt employees. And to talk further on the subject matter, we have returning host, Lynn.

Hi. Good to be back.

I know. I'm excited to have you back. And we also have on the other side, Paul Edwards. He's the CEO and co founder of Cedar HR Solutions. It's basically a company that provides on demand HR support for dental practices across the USA. Paul has over 25 years of experience as a manager and business owner and is known in the dental community for his expertise in solving HR issues. So, Paul, how's it going?

It's going good, and I I wanna add something to that. It's not Paul that solves all those problems anymore. I have a lot of people. Team. Yeah. But it's Paul and his team. So, solve these problems. But, yeah.

Yeah. I'm happy to be here. Excited to kinda talk about this. It's not often that people get fired up about an HR issue. So Right.

Right. Right. Well, I know that some of my clients use Cedar, and they, rave about it. You have definitely one cheerleader for sure, and that's how this all started that we got together. So I'm excited to hear what what you know because it's a confusing topic to a lot of people on on several levels. Exciting and, infuriating at the same time as far as where the salary levels are going. So, I'm at the same time as far as where the salary levels are going. So

Yep. It's a very interesting time that we're going through now as far as the rules and regulations are being written. You know, the Department of Labor has been trying to adjust this up for several years now. So this has been an ongoing thing for, I think, close to 8 to 9 years.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I knew it had been paused several times due to, you know, of course, COVID and things like that. I didn't realize it had been going on that long.

Yep. Yep. They've been trying for quite quite a while, and we can get into the reasons why.

And we

can talk about that today.

Great. So where do you wanna start? You wanna give us a little background about what what it is we're actually talking about?

Yeah. So for everybody who's listening, we have these, we have this classification of employees called exempt employees, and I think, Ash and and Lynn, I think you guys we talked about this. We're gonna get into that a little deeper. Yeah. But for right now, let's just let's just call an exempt employee. For most people who are listening, this is gonna be applied in your practice to an office manager. And by the way, not all office managers qualify for the exempt status, and, again, we'll get into that. However, if we look at these exempt employees as office managers, you have a minimum salary requirement that you're supposed to be paying them.

So the current minimum salary requirement is $35,658 a year is the minimum. I don't think we have a lot of office managers out there who are at that level. I think most of them are already, above that, and I know that because we've polled our more than well, we have more than 10,000 people in our community, in our HR community with about 3,000 of them as members. We pulled them and got back that really of the respondents, it was less than 2%. We're down at around the the 39 to 40,000 dollar mark.

Yeah. That would that would seem right to me.

Does that reflect you guys have a bunch of dental clients. So you you see their payrolls and what they're paying.

Yeah. We'd be surprised to anybody this low.

Yeah. And so the the DOL came in and and decided that they wanted to raise the these rates. And, again, you know, they've been trying to do this now for about 10 years. They wanted to adjust the rates because it's been several years. And so what you could end up with and and let's just jump outside of dentistry. Okay? What you could end up with is some person, hiring a a manager for their pizza place, and that person's only getting paid $40,000 a year. And if you multiply it times the number of hours that they work, it really works out to about dollars an hour for a manager. And so they felt they needed to adjust this this rate up, and that's what we're going through right now.

So 2 proposed changes. One of them was for July 1st, and we'll talk about that go back and talk about that in just a minute. And in in the July 1st increase, it was supposed to go to $844 per week $48,000 a year. So that that is where we are at right now, and I'll discuss how we got there. K. But before I do that, guys, then there's another proposed change. And this is the one that's got people has gotten people's attention Yeah. Which is on January 1, 2025.

They're gonna say the minimum amount the minimum salary you can pay an exempt, qualified employee is basically $58,000 a year, almost 59,000.

Huge increase.

So that's a big increase. And and still, when we look at the 48,000, which is in effect right now, surprisingly, Again, we'll talk about that in a second. Again, when we look at our polling, we have a slight uptick, but most office managers out there are making more than $48,000 a year, but not all. So we moved down through those, some of the southern states, and if we move into some of the more rural western and northern states, we look we see that 48,000 as as being kind of on the cusp. Right? Which is kinda that's kind of a it's it's happening, but it's still pretty rare. Most office managers are making more money than that. And so, look, what's happened is is that this rule has been challenged a couple of times over the past, almost decade. When the Obama administration went out, they they put in place a planned increase, and that increase was, put on hold and litigated.

And then a federal judge located in Texas, decided that they did not they, being the Department of Labor, Wage and Hour, did not have the authority to raise and change the rules the way that they were changed. And so it kinda just died on the vine there. The current administration has come back, and they have, mandated that their Department of Labor address this issue again. And so new regulations and rules were written to raise the the the, minimum amounts. And, quickly, in the same court in Texas, we have at least 3 lawsuits that went went into place. These are generally gonna be like the Chamber of Commerce, or it's gonna be, you know, it's gonna be some business interest that's gonna come in and and argue. The first case that was heard was heard just before the end of just about 3 days before July 1st, 3 or 4 days. And the or the or the maybe it was heard about a week before, but the judge issued his ruling, and he put kind of a, it was interesting.

I I we were wrong here. I I just wanna say that everybody here, here and when I say everybody, I have a a a wonderful group of of employees and and and executive team that are made up of attorneys and and and, you know, all kinds of experts here. And if we were gonna predict, we were gonna we were gonna kinds of experts here. And if we were gonna predict, we were gonna we were predicting that he was gonna kill the whole thing. He was gonna say, no. You don't have the authority. You can't do this.

Okay.

I I'm I'm I was really surprised that he came back with a limited ruling that basically said that the people who were arguing were arguing on the behalf of the state of Texas and not private businesses, but the state. And so he told his ruling was is that the July 1st, raise would go into effect except for the government employees in Texas. Okay. That's how it played out. We thought he was gonna do a blanket, ruling and kill it try to kill it across the country.

Interesting.

I think it's kinda interesting. And, I mean, for you guys, what's freaking us out here is is putting the genie the the genie back in the bottle. Mhmm. If that, you know, if that metaphor makes any sense Yeah. Makes sense to everybody out there. We thought he was gonna delay it because they're consolidating these court cases. We thought he was gonna delay it because you can't it's gonna be really hard to take that away once you once you put these raises in place. Absolutely.

If that were needed to be. So just imagine on January 1st that that that $58,000 becomes true, and then on January 20th, there's some kind of ending to the court case, and there's a finding that they didn't have the power and that you now can take that money back away from somebody. I mean, that would be I I mean, that's a mess.

That it would be a mess, but I foresee a lot of people not making the change timely and still being able to catch up to that kind of court date after the fact decision, unfortunately.

Yeah. Yeah. The problem is is that anybody who doesn't follow this law, they are out of compliance even if there's a ruling. Now the ruling could guys, I you know, I guess it could have a retroactive effect. They could put something retroactive in there saying, you know, that that you can go back that people who didn't follow the rule aren't in any trouble, but that is not the way that the the Department of Labor works. Right. Typically. And I don't see them going back retroactively.

But, again, I was really wrong on the July first thing.

That's a lot like the beneficial ownership change, a court case that came up. It was found to be unconstitutional, but it applied only to those litigants. And so it's apparently still in place for everyone else except that one small group of people. And now it's expected, of course, to be challenged all over the place. But

Oh, it's yeah. And that's what's going on right now too is we're the we have other court cases whereby there may be more standing or broader standing. So for everybody listening, you know, I think most people know this now. If you go to court and you make an argument against something, you have to show that the thing that you're arguing against actually has an impact on you. That's just a a basic explanation of standing.

Right.

And so that's where these businesses are failing or these litigants are failing. But, you know, I do know that we have one business that's in a in getting into the fray, a large business. And, you know, I I don't know how this is gonna play out. I just tell everybody, once the rule is in effect regard try trying to guess what the court's gonna do or retroactively repair or make okay is a losing battle.

That is completely impossible.

It is impossible. So, you know, if you guys want, we can talk a little bit about what you might do in in lieu of let's I would like to look out to January 1, 2025 and say, look, if we're gonna if it appears that this law is gonna go in effect or this raise, this regulation is gonna go into effect, then how would we deal with it? The first thing first way we would deal with it is you just put the raise into effect. So if you're paying someone $54,000 a year, they got a raise to 59 and and and so forth. The second way to do this is to, or to address this for practices that are listening, is that you have enough time to do a little bit of well, to get with your CPAs, and and to do some math, and to figure out how you might change this employee's status from exempt to nonexempt and put them on an hourly wage.

Right.

Now that opens up a lot of stuff.

Oh, yeah.

You know, the the cool thing about exempt when it's cool, when it's good for everybody well, for the employer, the cool thing about exempt is is that if you need your manager to work 65 hours 1 week, you don't have to pay them overtime. If on the next week they're working 35 hours, you also don't get the benefit of cutting their their pay because they work less hours. You still pay them the same amount. And that is a basic explanation of the rule Okay. Is that an exempt salaried employee must be must be paid the same amount in each paycheck. Or or to put it more, maybe more accurately, you cannot low you cannot reduce their pay for the number of hours they work unless it's under very, very specific circumstances.

Okay.

And so, you know, I I think that the argument against this, we actually saw it in the court case, and I just I think it's a little bit silly. There's this idea that if I'm an exempt employee at a salaried position, it puts me in it gives me some kind of standing, a raised personal with with that classification are managers. Right? They've they've moved up the they've earned their way up or they've earned their way in, and they're in management at some level. And so the salary indicates is another indicator that I have I have arrived. Right? I have I'm I'm at the you know, I'm I'm growing within my position.

Exactly.

That said, if I'm a manager and I'm constantly working 55 hours a week, if you wanna redo if you wanna change me from exempt to nonexempt and put me on track to make what I'm already making, which might be 52, 54, and pay me overtime for extra hours I work, then I'm basically probably going to make more money in a in a in a in a business than I would make had I just gone to the if I just been given that raise. So there's a little bit of a balancing act here. Right? Guys, there's a little bit of a math problem for both parties to to address. And if you're gonna change someone's status from exempt to nonexempt, I think you need to do it in a very structured, a very transparent way.

Mhmm.

You know, almost needing to work with the employee to explain the math, to figure it out. The other thing you could do is make the person an ex, nonexempt employee, pay them the equivalent of what you've been paying them. Again, I'm gonna just use 50 $2,000 a year. And then and then, go go to work with them to make sure that they don't work a lot of overtime. You know? Just just change the way you do things. You know? No more talking to them at 9 o'clock at night, over text. No more, you know, no more just expecting them to probably be there 10 hours a day. Mhmm.

You have to start monitoring them and making sure that they're not working overtime, which in some instances means you may have to hire another person because they've been filling the gaps. And, you know, that's what exempt employees do.

Right. That can all be beneficial to the employee if but it's gotta be communicated well to them, right, to help them understand that this isn't some kind of

trick that

you're playing. Right? Yeah. I'm not trying to do the shell game here. This really is in your best interest, and here's why. But you can't just just come in and make these sweeping changes. And and really you need to be evaluating, as you said, whether they are validly an exempt employee in the first place, which we'll talk about.

Yeah. I think we'd get to that probably get to that here shortly. I do I do wanna say one other thing. I kind of use this thought process, and I think it applies here. That thought process being that when I'm hiring an employer, I'm setting a salary require you know, I'm setting their salary or their hourly pay, and an employee negotiate and a and a candidate negotiates with me based off of, you know, what they've been paid before, what they think their worth is, their experience. My thought process is I've tried to really come in not at the low point of the market. I'm actually trying to take people away from other companies. Mhmm.

I'm trying to take, you know, difference makers away. People who have experience that we don't have. That's what a difference maker is. And we're trying to draw people away. And so you draw people away by better working conditions, being a better manager than maybe where they're at paying them more better benefits. We could go down the line. Here's the thing, though. The more I give and the more that you ask of me, the more I expect from you.

That's true.

And so if I wanted to pay you 52 and you negotiated me up to 58, then you darn well better come through the door earning that extra $6,000 and showing your value. So you've actually placed a, you know, you put kind of put your neck on the chopping block in the first six months because I expect a lot more from you. And I think that if this goes into effect and we're having to pay office managers 58, 59, $60,000 a year, then we're also gonna wanna take a hard look. Do we have the right person in place? Are they really worth this? Are they or are they really not an not a manager? I'm air quoting everybody. You can't see that. Are they really not a manager, but they're more of a a project manager, which by the way, man, maybe that's not a good way to put it because project managers are worth a lot of money. You know? Are they a manager of people, your business, and everything that needs to be done, or are they just someone there to babysit employees?

Yeah. That's a great great point.

Are they growing? You know? Are they, you know, are they are they really advancing? And, you know, I I don't know how you guys feel about this, but I think it's a good conversation to be in as as an owner.

Oh, I agree. Absolutely. It is. It is. Yeah. You know what? At the end this entire time as I was hearing this, and I was trying to put myself in the shoes of a dentist, a business owner. And I'm instantly thinking of changing my entire business model. Like, get rid of office managers all together.

Maybe, you know, hire multiple front desk people, you know, divide up the task of a manager amongst them. Look into outsourcing some of the front desk responsibilities so I can minimize my expenses. I'm I'm already struggling with raised rent. I'm already struggling with having to pay more. My bottom line line is shrinking. And then if this comes into play, I mean, I really need to think outside of the box to still stay in I mean, one other thing that I keep talking to about, you know, let's say a single practice owner is that the growing competition between them and, some of the corporate dentistries out there. They're like the economies of scale that they have, the advantages that they have, that's something they are really struggling to compete with, and it's with good employees and being able to provide them with the training. And if there's going to be an increase in salary, they're like, okay.

We need to figure out how to afford that. How do we do that? Do we reduce the c options that we provide to them? Do we reduce some of the benefits that we were thinking of putting into place for them in the next 2, 3 years? It's just I don't know. I feel like I I don't feel good about this is what I'm essentially saying.

And I'm sure the business owners don't feel good about it right now either.

No. They don't. And and, and, you know, when you're tracking every penny and every dime and you're you know, as they say in the restaurant business, you're counting forks. Yeah. You you know, you it's easy to focus on cutting or how to how to how to make up for this money some some other way. But I would submit that by making making us go up to $60,000 on this, they they're actually putting us on the playing field to do something that we weren't really comfortable with before. Again, I'm trying to look at this as a half full kind of thing Mhmm. Which is now I can go out because because I'm paying $60,000 a year.

I can go out, and I can find people who are more qualified difference makers. I can literally take them away from a D DSO, because I'm in I'm in a competitive advantage. Mhmm. I do honestly believe that when you find difference maker and they're everywhere, by the way. Everybody who's listening. There are so many good employees out there. When you find a difference maker, they will if you have to pay them $6,000 more than you wanted to, they will make that back for you 10 times over if they're good at what they do.

Absolutely agree with that.

The trick is, though, probably your clients and mine too, it's easy for me to say that, but how you find them, how you interview and how you interview people, how you hire, how you go through that process, that is very difficult. Mhmm. It's, you know, it's a skill. We don't all have it. We don't all have time for it. I could go down the litany of things that we don't have time for. And one of them is to spend time, you know, as a solo practitioner with 8 employees or 12 employees interviewing, you know, 64 seemingly qualified candidates to try to figure out which one to hire. It's it's a lot of it's a lot of work.

So, yeah, those are those some of my thoughts on this. I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep it positive, everybody. I know I'm talking to the CPAs, and you guys are like, no. No. More money's going out the door. No. No. No.

But I'm trying to go to the other side, which is if I've gotta do this, then here's my, here's my strategy.

Right. Well, yeah, I also run a business. So I understand from from the management side what that good employee can bring to the table. And if they're worth it, then this salary is no problem at all. So, I I mean, it is a big increase, but it's not out of the realm of reasonable by any stretch of the imagination, and who knows where it will end up on January first in reality. So

Well, I I do wanna recognize this because I'm originally from, you know, small town America. My dad was in the air force, but I was raised in Eastern North Carolina. And I don't love it when at the federal level, we impose something this high across the entire country.

Agree.

Going back to my, you know, my experience, I think this is a lot of money in Louisiana and Mississippi, some portions of Southern Alabama. By the way, Southern States, I'm not picking on you because I'm from North Carolina. I I'm just saying, I I think when you impose that big of a raise across the country, it's gonna be outsized, I think, in a few locations. I don't believe that the raise to, you know, the the current raise to 48,000 is unreasonable. Is

in line, basically, with standards. But we have a lot of 1,000 is is in line basically with standards. But we have a lot of rural areas in Texas that will not be able to support that kind of number and, you know, I've some practices in, like, vacation towns in Reynosa and there's just no way that they can that they can manage that. The practices will go under at that level. So the fact that, you know, geographic location and demographics are are not a part of this at all is completely unreasonable.

I I I agree. And I wanna I I just wanna play, not maybe not devil's advocate. On the other side of this, it's been years since this this minimum amount of money has been raised. Meanwhile, all of our employees out there are are experiencing the same inflation, if not worse inflation than we are as business owners. I mean, if you've been in a grocery store or tried to have an air conditioner replaced or done any of those things, the cost is going up. So we're constantly in some kind of a balance here. So I don't know. You know, guys, I'm I'm I'm for raising all boats.

I'm a big fan. Let's let's raise all the boats and and do the best we can. I think that this kind of investment for the vast majority of us is the best kind of investment because it does go back into our community. You know? It does get spent in our community. I I would point this out to people who are listening. Again, I'm trying to I'm trying to put a glass half full here. Mhmm. You know, you as a dentist will benefit from this as well because other people in your community will have to raise their employees' pays up, and that gives them more, you know, treatment income and and and stuff like that.

At least on paper, that's how that should look.

But going back to the dental office, I mean Mhmm. How much of an impact is this actually going to make when we're talking about one position versus all the position. I think that the, you know, the dental owner hears this and without digging into the details, they're freaking out thinking they're have to going to have to raise everybody to this level, and that's not really what we're talking about.

That's a great point. I I haven't even thought about that this way. Yeah. You're right. On the face of it, you feel like, oh gosh. Everybody's getting a giant raise for me. But the fact is there were only really 2 people in your office, and I guess we get into the classification conversation. There's if you have an associate doctor, they can be paid on a exempt salary, and and they're even at a level of classification where what you pay them doesn't really matter.

Now it matters to the associate and your success. However, there is no minimum wage for them, and this this this rule does not impact them when they're acting as associate doctors. The the case for other people who are classified other workers is your office manager. And so the the very simple explanation of this is that the office manager must spend 50% or more of their time managing 2 or more people.

Okay.

That's just a that's just a good way to a good way to simplify. Now they call it a test. There is an IRS test, and there's a DOL test, and they cross they cross paths. There's a lot of, shared criterion on those tests. But that that those two things that I gave you, you know, what they do and who they manage is the main are the main things for, practice. So a dental practice that has a dentist, an office manager, 2 a hygienist, and and another employee, they can't classify the office manager as exempt. They shouldn't. They can.

They do whatever they want. It would not be in compliance. And so because they got they not they can't manage the hygienist 50% of her time, and they're and they don't have enough employees to to meet the criteria.

Right. And I think that would surprise a lot of business owners that that is the truth.

It is it is the truth. And the problem is is when you misclassify someone, you're you're putting yourself in a position to have to go back and pay for all the hours and pay them overtime because that's this classification. It removes the obligation of overtime.

Mhmm.

And then the second thing is is because you made the mistake of classification, if you did make that mistake, is that you probably did what we, most small businesses do, and you didn't have track their hours. And so now you have a misclassification. You have a finding from the DOL that you owe someone for the hours that, the overtime hours they worked during a week going back for however long that they've been misclassified, up to 7 years. And then, you know, you're you you haven't been tracking their hours. So that's your that's your defense in the wage and hour claim as you produce the timekeeping cards and say, you know, this is what actually happened here. And and because you messed up at the beginning, you don't have the things you need in order to minimize the impact of this. So, you know, that classification thing is super important to get right, and you should on the on the side of, you know, not getting yourself in trouble on this stuff. That said, we help, our practices get their documentation in place and their assessments in place and to work with their CPAs in order to get the classification right.

You know, to have to have the paperwork that shows that you actually went through a process and made a determination is very valuable if it's found later that you made a mistake.

Mhmm. Absolutely. They they need someone on their team for that.

Yeah. That I mean, that's where we can you know, folks like us can come in

Right. To

play. I you know, I do wanna say this. Your payroll company is not responsible for getting this right. Your payroll company for using the vernacular poop in, poop out, they if you tell them someone's exempted on salary, then they just take that prevent me from having made this mistake. And that's not their job. That is not what they do.

It's not their job, and they don't have any of the facts with which to make that determination. All they know what you've told

them. Yep. So whatever you put into the system is what whatever they're they're gonna do. Now could you call them and ask them about it? You sure could. But, I mean, I've worked around the major, you know, all of the payroll companies, and you're not a great resource for getting this right.

No. They they are there to calculate payroll using their software. They're not there to help you make decisions, and they aren't trained for that. So and it's not nothing against them. That's just not what their expertise is.

No. Even when they they claim that it's their expertise. And I'm saying this not to pan on on payroll companies, but to say to the listeners out there, you need to be talking to an HR expert and or a CPA. And and and it could be an attorney. But if it is an attorney, it needs to be, an attorney with employment law experience, and classification experience. Not all attorneys are equal. And so, you know, just wanted to throw that tidbit in there. Yeah.

No. We we absolutely agree. Yeah.

Yep. Talk to the talk to

the CPAs. CPAs. The c you know, we know some things about some of the areas. We know a lot of things about some of the areas, but we don't know everything about all of the the HR areas. And so a lot of our advice, we're gonna give some answers that we know, and then we're gonna be saying, you need to reach out to an HR expert to help you navigate the rest of this.

Yeah. Yeah. And we do it all the time. So it's it's, you know, it's a natural part of what we do for our members, making sure they've got this right. And we still, you know, they we they still show up having made mistakes. It's just what we do as small business owners.

So you're saying the dental assistants, the insurance, back office positions, none of those should be exempt salaried positions?

None of them should be exempt salaried positions. Everybody, there is a classification called nonexempt salary, which just means you've simplified your payroll. Not you probably are only open 32 to 36 hours a week. And for that, you're just paying a fixed salary, and you say to everybody whether you work 34 or 40 hours, I'm gonna pay you the same. Nonetheless, you are still tracking their time. And if they work more than 40 hours, you are obligated, 40 hours in a work week, and 7 day, continuous work week, continuous days in a work week. You are obligated to pay them over time above and beyond their salary. And just to be clear, just because they worked 30 4 hours 1 week and and 44 hours the next week does not mean that you could average those 2.

So whether or not we're talking about a salaried or an hourly employee, you cannot average their hours over a 2 week period to go with your pay period.

Yeah. And there's a couple of good points you made there. I mean, 1, generally, they're not misclassifying to get out of paying overtime. They're misclassifying to simplify things. I can just here's your salary. It's the same every time. I can run my payroll easily. And so this other option, this gives you still that capability.

And the other thing is most of these practices are not gonna be working over 40 hours. So the overtime rarely comes into play unless there's some emergency things that come up or you're you're doing an office event or an office cleaning or some special events on a a weekday or a particular week. Otherwise, you're never gonna hit over that 40 hours for for most of the small practices out there.

Or you take your team to a CE event in Vegas, everybody. You just because you got them hotels doesn't mean and and paid for their flights doesn't mean that you don't have to track their travel time.

That's a that's another point that, people aren't aware of. Yeah.

Yeah. They're like, I did this great thing for them, and I gave them I gave everybody $500 a day to go gambling and have fun. Do I still have to pay him? And the answer is yes. You do. So

Yeah. And and they don't seem to understand when the employees start asking for that paycheck why why they would insist on being paid. But most of them would rather have stayed home than to go to that event. I can guarantee you.

Most people would rather stay with their kids or on their couch. I I I maybe I'm talking about myself. I'd rather be with my dog on my couch in at my at my, grill, cooking brisket, as opposed to being someplace with y'all. Yeah. That's that's all I'm saying. Yeah. It's it's but, look, I still think CEs and those type of things are a good good offense. Just everybody needs to make sure they understand the rules Right.

When it comes to pay and travel pay and all that stuff.

Well, this has been super helpful.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

And One other thing that I just wanna just add, right, it just dawned on me. Look. There are some states whereby this conversation is different for California, for example, but they do not stand alone where they have already raised the the bar for the amount of pay that, minimum pay that an exempt employee must make. So, again, just because you've heard us talking about this today, I'm speaking at a national level. If you're in, say, you know, New York, California, Massachusetts, and I I can't think of all of them, but there's several states where the rules are slightly different, which highlights how difficult HR can be.

Right.

You gotta you gotta follow the rule that treats the employee the best. That's the that's kind of how the courts have to defer.

Okay. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a

good point, Paul. Well, thank you so much for being on our podcast today and sharing your amazing knowledge with our listeners. It was truly a learning experience. Mhmm.

Yeah. It's kind of fun to to nerd out about HR stuff. It's rare that we have HR emergencies, you know, where everybody gets fired up in a whole HR community. Like, I don't know what to do. What do we do?

So you're enjoying this little brouhaha that's come come here.

I hate to admit it, but, yep, I have. I've kind of enjoyed it. It's been it's been fun predicting and following. You know, we get the court case as soon as it you know, the transcripts and stuff, we start reading through it, and then, of course, you're following all the experts out there. But, yeah, it's been kind of exciting for us.

Well, again, the clients that I have that use Cedar, which I always misspell just for the record Okay. Just rave about it, and you've definitely exemplified why because your knowledge base is is clearly there. So that's great.

And I am not the smartest person in the room, everybody. There's 10 there's 10 other 12 other experts here who are, immersed in this stuff. So

Which makes it even better.

Yep. Thanks to them, I sound like I know what I'm

talking about. I understand that completely.

Yep. Well,

thank you again, and it was a pleasure. We look forward to listening from you again in the future.

Yeah. And we'll put, Cedar's information in the show notes. So if you wanna reach out to them, we would absolutely recommend you do that.

Yeah. Jump on our website and get into the newsletter, get into our newsletter.

Why don't you give us that website since I can't spell cedar myself? They may have a difficulty also.

It is c as in cat, e as in elephant, d as in dog, the letter r. So cedr, the word solutions with an s at the end, dot com. Cedarsolutions.com. Find one of our forms. Don't worry about it. We're not gonna, send you a bunch of stuff or sell any data or anything like that. And just get in our newsletter. It's a ton of education.

I think one of the best things is the roundup that comes out every 2 weeks. We include 3 real questions from real people and the solution that we propose to them when their questions come in.

I definitely echo that about the news letter. It was a great wealth of information. So I would advise you to do that if nothing else. But if you need some HR advice, they're a great company to reach out to.

And I'm gonna pitch one more thing, guys, because it's free. I have a podcast called What the Hell Just Happened, and you can find it all on all the

Great title, by the way. I I love that title.

It it is because the doctor would call and be like, you will not believe what the hell just happened in my practice. Let me tell you, Paul. And so that's where the title came from. So it's, yeah. We've had we've got we're over 33,000 lessons now, and we're starting our next, season.

Great.

Well, I

know I'm gonna check it out because you're a great speaker, so it should be great.

I appreciate you guys. Thank you for having us on.

It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Thanks for listening today. Be sure to subscribe to Beyond by Wings on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, or reach out to us on our website. You can also shoot us an email at info@eandassociates.com.