Say four of your salaried, exempt employees are burning the midnight oil this summer on a special project. Their boss wants to reward them with extra pay and/or extra vacation hours. But you raise this legal red flag: Won’t giving them such an “overtime” bonus be treating them more like nonexempt employees and, therefore, destroy their exempt status? The answer: No … as long as you structure that extra compensation in the right way ...

This week’s important U.S. Supreme Court ruling on pay discrimination resulted in a major victory for employers nationwide … and an unusually heated debate between Supreme Court justices. The 5-4 vote means employees no longer can sit on wage discrimination claims for years. They have only 180 days to file their claims with the EEOC or the claim is forever barred. Period. Sounds like good news, right? But be aware: This ruling likely will, in the short run, lead to a spike in pay-discrimination claims...