Personal Finance

Its not always sinister, sometimes its just the petty bureaucracy of HR trying to standardize things to benefit themselves. I once got switched from salary to hourly because HR was trying to align job titles across departments.

My title at the time was Sr. Analyst and they were switching to a numerical title system. My boss said to write up a justification for why I should be slotted as an Analyst 3, which would stay salary, otherwise I would be slotted as an hourly Analyst 2. I asked if there was any benefit to the higher title and was told no, so I declined and was switched to hourly. For me it was fantastic because I regularly worked over 40 hours and traveled frequently, so I started getting lots of overtime pay.

Does your job normally require you to work more than forty hours or less. Because if it's less that's not good for you.

I'm going to keep an eye out in the market with these replies. I think I'm still ok if it's just the possibility of reduced hours because I'm not entirely sure if that's likely the case. I didn't mention it in OP, but we already had an "approved" amount of hours to work regardless based on contracts. We also have timesheets regardless due to auditing requirements.

But it probably doesn't hurt to be cautious.

I’d imagine that for nonexempt employees, it’s easier to have it all done hourly. In some older systems, you’d have to manually go in and check who went over 40 to see who gets OT pay (usually 1.5x). Having it all in one place sounds simpler.

As long as your hourly pay rate * expected annual hours worked equals your old annual salary, I wouldn’t worry. Just always double check that you get the OT rate when you work overtime.

This definitely sounds like they're looking for a reason to pay you less, unless they regularly schedule overtime or something

Salary non-exempt guarantees you're paid at least the 40 hours a week + overtime.

I'd push back and say that this is a terms of contract change and get your peers to do the same.