The Department of Labor ("DOL") found that Haliburton had misclassified over 1,000 of its employees (28 positions, including field service representatives, reliability tech specialists, and pipe recovery specialists) as exempt from overtime. To settle the matter, Haliburton agreed to pay $18.3 million, a substantial DOL recovery to be sure. Both employee and contractor misclassification are hot button issues for the DOL and state agencies. Companies should evaluate their workforces for (1) employee misclassification in high risk areas such as technical support, customer service, and sales and (2) how they are using contractors in their business—engaging individuals as contractors to try them out before hiring them as employees, for long-term projects, or when the contractors are providing the same services as employees, create risk of contractor misclassification.
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