Are Personal Assistants Eligible For Overtime?

Originally published by Vethan Law.

Personal assistants are often the untouted heroes of a business. Little sleep, intense focus, and ridiculously good organizational skills are needed to be a personal assistant of CEO’s and Presidents. Many personal assistants also wear a lot of hats. They are notetakers, meeting schedulers, children picker-uppers, doctor appointment schedulers, and outlets for the people they assist.

With the title of Personal Assistant, comes the knowledge that your standard nine to five hours and forty hours per week probably isn’t going to happen. A personal assistant is often attached at the hip of the person they are assisting. Most of those people work way more than forty hours per week. This begs the question, are personal assistants eligible for overtime?

Unfortunately, the short answer is no. The reasoning is laid out in the Fair Labor Standards Act in sections where job descriptions and duties are described. According to the FLSA regulations, an employee working in a bona fide administrative capacity, earning a salary of no less than $455 per week, who does not perform manual work directly related to management, and whose duty includes an exercise of discretion and judgement is considered exempt.

This is a long way of stating that any administrative type work from a personal assistant or executive assistant is not considered eligible for overtime pay. However, there are cases in which personal assistants have fought and won in overtime pay claims. This rare situation occurs based on the description of job duties. If the administrative tasks of the personal assistant are a small portion of the actual job duties, there is a chance that a personal assistant could qualify for overtime. Performing personal work for an executive, such as picking up children from school, scheduling doctor appointments, and managing personal purchases are all considered non-administrative work. Therefore these job duties are not exempt from potential overtime pay.

When it comes to being a personal assistant, primary job roles and tasks are key in proving if you should or should not be eligible for overtime pay.

If you are in need of a Texas overtime lawyer, contact Vethan Law Firm by calling our Houston office at 713-526-2222 or our San Antonio office at 210-824-2220.

The post Are Personal Assistants Eligible For Overtime? appeared first on Vethan Law Firm.

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