The impending changes to the federal overtime regulations go into effect Dec. 1, and middle managers are among the biggest concerns under the new rules. The Good Times quick-service burger chain has announced it will recast its salaried restaurant positions as hourly jobs to temper the impact.
“Even though some of our management are well above the new Department of Labor requirement for an exempt employee, we anticipate a very small increase in our overall labor as a result,” CEO Boyd Hoback told financial analysts. He indicated that the approach will allow Good Times to keep unit management personnel on a 48-hour work week with only a 0.25-point increase in labor costs.
The 37-unit burger chain is the first operation of any scale to reveal its strategy for the new rules, which were proposed by the Obama administration as a way of raising the income of a projected 5 million people.
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