Carolinas PGA Career Services Portal

PGA Career Consultant Report - April 2024

It was great seeing all of you at the Spring Chapter Meetings, and we hope your 2024 golf season is off to a great start. We have several updates to share with you , so let's get right to it!

Carolinas PGA GROW Update

While we had a short, small meeting at the Carolinas PGA Supershow in February, the PGA GROW program really kicked off in March with one online discussion about goals for 2024 and another exercise using the PrinciplesYou Behavioral Assessment to help identify opportunities for growth. The first online discussion for April was centered around personal strengths, but as viewed through their co-workers eyes.

In addition, Career Committee Member Eric Schultz delivered a presentation on Time Management & Work/Life Balance before leading a discussion with the group. If you would like to view the recording, you can see it HERE. This month, Career Committee Member Hugh Matthis will deliver a presentation on the mentoring relationship.

Department of Labor Overtime Proposal Update

At the recent Chapter Meetings, I shared information about the proposed changes to the salary floor for full time, salaried employees who are classified as exempt from overtime pay. As I shared, this proposal could raise the minimum salary for those employees from $35,568 to $55,068. As an update to that proposal, there has not yet been a final ruling, though there are some additional updates. Recently, the Department of Labor (DOL)’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) sent the final rule to update Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime regulations to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review. This is a required step in the regulatory process and acts as one of the last steps prior to releasing the text of the regulation to the public. In other words, we can expect some news soon. In addition, a footnote to the proposed rule also indicates that by the time the final rule would be released, the updated salary threshold may be closer to $60,209 based on a review of 2024 wage data.

To prepare for the final rule, there are steps employers can take now. The first step is to identify those employees classified as overtime-exempt who are potentially impacted by this rule. For those classified as exempt as executive, administrative, or professional employees, a suggested range would be to flag positions making $60,500 or less.

For those identified, start thinking about whether the employer will increase the employee’s salary to comply with the final rule or, alternatively, convert them to non-exempt status and pay them overtime. In making this determination, one major question will be cost – which option is more expensive? To help answer that question, if possible, employers may want to start monitoring hours worked by those employees now, to ascertain how many hours in excess of 40 those employees typically work each week.

Cost is not the only consideration. Employers should also consider:

How would conversion to non-exempt status affect employee morale? Would employees view it as a demotion? Many employees feel that exempt status carries a certain meaning – that as exempt employees, they carry a certain level of importance and prestige within the company. Exempt status also comes with flexibility that non-exempt employees may not have.
Will the employee be converted to hourly/non-exempt or salaried/non-exempt?
How will the employee’s hours be tracked? Related, how will the employer ensure the employee is not performing “off the clock” work?
How will the employer determine the regular rate of pay for calculating overtime when creating budgets.

This process also provides an opportunity to evaluate whether the position truly meets the duties test of the exemption rules, and whether the position meets the requirements of any applicable state law that may be stricter.

Finally, employers should determine how these changes will be communicated to employees. In addition to communicating the change, this process may include developing a training plan for those employees who will need to start tracking time, and for supervisors of employees who are being reclassified.

Labor Supply & Demand

In the August 2023 Report, we wrote the following:

Speaking of the labor market, you may remember that in my June report, I shared that "there were over 1,200 new associates registered since July 1, 2022, which represents the biggest number since 2015!". Here in the Carolina's, it has meant a 17% increase in Associates year over year. Additional good news came this week, as I was told that we are on track to drop the fewest members since 2014 for non-payment of dues.

So we are bringing in more people to the Association and controlling attrition. On the surface, that is excellent news as both have been priorities the past few years. But we need to begin to pay attention to the basic economic principles of supply and demand, as the recent lack of supply (available labor) has driven up both the demand and the wages for those workers. There would seem to be an inflection point where an oversupply of labor will put downward pressure on wages. Let's hope that point on the supply/demand curve is a long way off.

Anecdotally, we are starting to see this occur, and THIS ARTICLE provides some additional color into the issue. Don and I talked last week about this, as after a few years of intense wage growth in the golf industry, I'm actually very bearish on the prospects for wage growth in 2024. While I hope (and expect) overall wages to still grow, I believe we are going to see a slowdown in the rate of growth and think some positions might even go backwards when making new hires.

Final Thoughts

The end of the Spring Chapter Meetings means it's tournament time in the Carolinas, and we hope to see you and some of the upcoming events. Specifically, Mike will be attending the Assistant's Association event at Eagle Point, the Ladies Pro-Pro at Landfall, The NC Open at Starmount, and the Harrah's Pro-Am in the mountains in the next few months.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike Mueller & Don Sweeting