I am new to Human Resources and have a question. We have an employee in our loan dept that we made a Credit Analysis, are they classified as Exempt? Thank you for any help you can give me with this.

Lee Ann

I doubt it, they don't act independently enough. I'm sure they just follow bank guidelines and procedures.

I think it depends on what is expected of the credit analyst. If they are simply inputting information, then probably not. If they are expected to analyze tax returns, cash flows, even make recommendations about credit approval or risk ratings, then I would look awfully hard at the professional exemption and adminstrative exemption.

I'm not an attorney, just telling you what I would look at.

We just reviewed these at the end of the year. Heated debate but I still agree with our HR folks on non-exempt. Ours analyze the tax returns etc, but they are getting the data in a format for the decision-maker, the commercial loan officer. The analysis they do is using software and following bank procedures. It was the most contested position in our review. It helped to line up our other non-exempt positions...bookkeepers, mortgage loan originators and even some IT staff.

Most banks I know went with non-exempt on analysts. I agree with the classification. Many hated to do it because the analysts would often work overtime but then that is the point, isn't it?

I have to side with Jokerman. Our Credit Analysts are very educated and perform procedures yes, but also have the ability to THINK individually and intelligently within their processes of analysis. Definately not in the same catagory as bookkeepers or even the LO's here!

our analysts, across all business lines, are exempt employees.

I suggest that you have them as exempt, that you contact a good employment attorney and have them verify. They are not employees whose work involves servicing the business itself - but rather are part of the production operation. You need to read the mortgage loan officer ruling very carefully - not why the MLOs were found to not be eligible for exemption - but the actual basis for that ruling.