Salary vs. Hourly for System Admins?

[Agentstarks]

How many of you system admins are on hourly wages? My company (in California) hasn't let me be salary because of some legal issue. They say that since I don't manage anyone, (40 total employees in the company) that I have to be hourly. I know that a lot of Sys Admins in California are salary though. What do you guys think? Which one is better in the long run?

 

[RoguePoet01]

I'm not an SA, but I'd take hourly any day.

Salary is all about making you work longer hours for the same pay.

It's very rare to be in a situation where you get paid salary and only work 40 a week.

 

[Agentstarks]

But the benefit of salary is comp-time. Right now I have to take about 50 hours off of work unpaid, because I don't have enough vacation/sick time saved up. With comp-time, that wouldn't be a problem. Plus, going hourly I wouldn't have to clock in and out all the time, especially when I do work from home. It's just a pain.

 

[donttreadonme]

When I started in IT 9 years ago I spent 4.5 years working for a distributor doing most everything from networking, lite RPG coding, laptop/PC support/repair, Unix admin, etc., and my goal and what I always wanted was to be salaried because I thought that was the true meaning of "making it," which was being on salary.

Then I went on to being a contractor for 6 months for a Fortune 400 company on hourly. Paid overtime, paid for carrying the pager, etc., then converted to a F/T employ for the Fortune company and went to salary. I "made it." However, no more pay for weekends, pager, etc. If a server crashed and I was there until 2AM, same pay.

Now I am working for a gov't contractor, salary, with overtime, nights, weekends. Yuck!

If I knew I could make it, my preference would be hourly working as a contractor (W-2) working for a contracting company, such as, Analysts International (only nationwide contractor I could think of that some may have heard of ), and never being tied to one company.

But, bottom line - hourly!

 

[CajunCenturion]

Which is better in the long run? That's a very subjective question, because better for whom? and how do you define better? Better for you may simply be the one which provides you a steady source of income.

I would ask them what the legal issue is. It may have something to do with benefits and that may or may not be an issue with you.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[theoxyde]

Yup. I was hourly, then went salary with a supposed pay increase. Comp time doesn't compare to actually getting paid for the time you work (especially if its overtime)... and that's assuming that your employer actually gives you comp time.

I managed to get back to hourly, I have fought tooth-and-nail to stay that way.

 

[Agentstarks]

The way our comp-time works is that for every hour of comp-time you get, you can use that as paid time off, just like vacation hours.

The thing I don't like about hourly is having to get permission to work overtime, everytime.... it just gets old after a while. My company isn't too high stress that I need to worry about working 80 hours weeks or anything.

 

[donttreadonme]

Very few companies do comp time on a hour/hour basis, and as stated, if they give it. The company isn't obliged to give comp time and if work has to be done, it has to be done. Give me the pay. The Fortune company had a comp time policy (yeah, it worked well for a while until a new manager!)

Plus, if a company knows that they are paying you to be there overtime, they won't like to do that all the time, and with salary they don't care because it isn't hitting their balance sheet.

Some think that with salary it is guaranteed, same amount every 2 weeks. Yet, the same would be true with hourly, given 40 hours, but could be higher given overtime.

Still with pagers, weekends, etc., as an admin, I believe you come out ahead on hourly. As a contractor, it was one hour minimum if you answered a pager call. Some contractors even started charging time from the time they left the house vs. getting to the office, if it was off-hours.

The other comment on punching a time clock. As a contractor that never happened. The manager signed the time sheet you turned in that just had the hours you worked for the day/week, then faxed to the contracting company and direct deposit pay! It may happen in a smaller company, as it did in my start for 4.5 years in IT, but not in my contracting stint.

 

[skotman]

The only way I would take salary over hourly is if I was not garenteed 40 hour work weeks. I started working hourly for an ISP and we had set schedules, made budgeting easy. Later when I started working under 40 I asked to be switched to salery, which they gladly did since some days I would be at the office untill 2 or 3am with a server, but those were few and far between.

The company I currently work for started me on salary but soon realised that I was getting screwed and changed me to hourly.

bottom line, unless they guarentee 40 hours, go salary, which basically ends up never so you always want hourly.

Scott Heath

http://www.scottspad.com

AIM: orange7288

 

[RoguePoet01]

Regarding on-call status, I think that an employee's time is supposed to accrue from the time he/she leaves the house. That's they way our maintenance guys do it here.

 

[skotman]

when I was at the ISP we got a free month of DSL service ($30 value) for being on call nights and weekends. We were small and rarely got called on anyway.

On another note, the legal issue that AgentStarks brought up apears to be apearing more and more. The phone company I was enslaved to (and I use that sentance loosly because they were neither a good phone company nor a good employer) had me hourly, then switched me to salary because they couldn't afford the OT.

One day we shut down completly and had this huge meeting where the CEO told us that everyone except managers would be put on hourly and we were not going to get paid for overtime. this was due to some law.
After checking into it (I don't trust this guy at all) aparently there is some labor law that says only managers can make uneligible salary and everyone else must make eligible salary. The difference being that being on eligible salary you qualify for OT, and being on uneligible salary you get screwed. I dont think to many companies know this and the telco was using this as an excuse to save money.

Scott Heath

http://www.scottspad.com

AIM: orange7288

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

I would take hourly over salary based on my expirience here. i am "required" to work 42.5 hours a week. Plus one day I was at work for 24 hours due to an upgrade. I infrequently have to stay late or work late. As a system admin, I would say hourly. For you I think it would come out to be the best.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[RoguePoet01]

I know that there are advantages to salary, but the advantages for the company to have salaried employees usually far outweigh the advantages for the employees.

For the sake of "professionalism" OT was required at almost every site I've ever worked when my position was salary.

Comp time was a pipe dream.

I realize that the higher a person climbs in position, the more likely their pay will be salary...but there has got to be provisions made to compensate for extended hour or, in my opinion, it's just not worth it.

How is it a raise when you're given, say, a 6% increase in pay yet you're expected to work 10% more?

 

[chosen1]

I'm on Salary but I get paid OT(straight time) should I go over the required 35 hours per week.

I think hourly is the way to go due to the nature of the job. System Admins sometimes have to work late or work on weekends...

 

[skotman]

chosen1,
Maybe you could ask your HR dept about those laws I mentioned earlier. I'm curious to find out if they are federal or State laws. I beleive they may actually be IRS laws....but then again these laws do benefit the employee so I doubt they are IRS laws.

 

[lespaul]

I believe what you're talking about ,skotman (if you're in the US), is EXEMPT vs. NONEXEMPT employees. An exempt employee is one that the employer is not required to pay overtime, usually a manager or someone who has some major responsibility within the organization. A NONEXEMPT employee is one who, while on salary, does not manage or contribute to the major enterprise and is therefore eligible for overtime (even though they are on salary).



Leslie

 

[skotman]

I thought so, btw I'm in Louisiana, the most backwards state around. I wasn't sure if it was some LA law or a Federal Law.

 

[MasterRacker]

Here's a pretty good description of exempt vs non-exempt.

http://www.ewin.com/articles/exneot.htm

Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...

 

[OhioBill]

Hourly. Always hourly. Hourly wages are very easy to understand; No work, no pay. Work lots of hours, collect a large check on Friday. Companies HATE large paychecks on Friday, so companies prefer you to collect a salary and continue to work all those hours.