[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 29, Volume 3]
[Revised as of July 1, 2004]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 29CFR541.201]

[Page 197-198]
 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
         CHAPTER V--WAGE AND HOUR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
 
PART 541_DEFINING AND DELIMITING THE TERMS ``ANY EMPLOYEE EMPLOYED IN A 
 
                        Subpart B_Interpretations
 
Sec. 541.201  Types of administrative employees.

    (a) Three types of employees are described in Sec. 541.2(c) who, if 
they meet the other tests in Sec. 541.2, qualify for exemption as 
``administrative'' employees.
    (1) Executive and administrative assistants. The first type is the 
assistant to a proprietor or to an executive or administrative employee. 
In modern industrial practice there has been a steady and increasing use 
of persons who assist an executive in the performance of his duties 
without themselves having executive authority. Typical titles of persons 
in this group are executive assistant to the president, confidential 
assistant, executive secretary, assistant to the general manager, 
administrative assistant and, in retail or service establishments, 
assistant manager and assistant buyer. Generally speaking, such 
assistants are found in large establishments where the official assisted 
has duties of such scope and which require so much attention that the 
work of personal scrutiny, correspondence, and interviews must be 
delegated.
    (2) Staff employees. (i) Employees included in the second 
alternative in the definition are those who can be described as staff 
rather than line employees, or as functional rather than departmental 
heads. They include among others employees who act as advisory 
specialists to the management. Typical examples of such advisory 
specialists are tax experts, insurance experts, sales research experts, 
wage-rate analysts, investment consultants, foreign exchange 
consultants, and statisticians.
    (ii) Also included are persons who are in charge of a so-called 
functional department, which may frequently be a one-man department. 
Typical examples of such employees are credit managers, purchasing 
agents, buyers, safety directors, personnel directors, and labor 
relations directors.
    (3) Those who perform special assignments. (i) The third group 
consists of persons who perform special assignments. Among them are to 
be found a

[[Page 198]]

number of persons whose work is performed away from the employer's place 
of business. Typical titles of such persons are lease buyers, field 
representatives of utility companies, location managers of motion 
picture companies, and district gaugers for oil companies. It should be 
particularly noted that this is a field which is rife with honorific 
titles that do not adequately portray the nature of the employee's 
duties. The field representative of a utility company, for example, may 
be a ``glorified serviceman.''
    (ii) This classification also includes employees whose special 
assignments are performed entirely or partly inside their employer's 
place of business. Examples are special organization planners, 
customers' brokers in stock exchange firms, so-called account executives 
in advertising firms and contact or promotion men of various types.
    (b) Job titles insufficient as yardsticks. (1) The employees for 
whom exemption is sought under the term ``administrative'' have 
extremely diverse functions and a wide variety of titles. A title alone 
is of little or no assistance in determining the true importance of an 
employee to the employer or his exempt or nonexempt status under the 
regulations in subpart A of this part. Titles can be had cheaply and are 
of no determinative value. Thus, while there are supervisors of 
production control (whose decisions affect the welfare of large numbers 
of employees) who qualify for exemption under section 13(a)(1), it is 
not hard to call a rate setter (whose functions are limited to timing 
certain operations and jotting down times on a standardized form) a 
``methods engineer'' or a ``production-control supervisor.''
    (2) Many more examples could be cited to show that titles are 
insufficient as yardsticks. As has been indicated previously, the exempt 
or nonexempt status of any particular employee must be determined on the 
basis of whether his duties, responsibilities, and salary meet all the 
requirements of the appropriate section of the regulations in subpart A 
of this part.
    (c) Individuals engaged in the overall academic administration of an 
elementary or secondary school system include the superintendent or 
other head of the system and those of his assistants whose duties are 
primarily concerned with administration of such matters as curriculum, 
quality and methods of instructing, measuring and testing the learning 
potential and achievement of students, establishing and maintaining 
academic and grading standards, and other aspects of the teaching 
program. In individual school establishments those engaged in overall 
academic administration include the principal and the vice principals 
who are responsible for the operation of the school. Other employees 
engaged in academic administration are such department heads as the 
heads of the mathematics department, the English department, the foreign 
language department, the manual crafts department, and the like. 
Institutions of higher education have similar organizational structure, 
although in many cases somewhat more complex.