Administrative or Professional: that is the question

It’s Saturday, that means SPHR study group for me. Today we covered Total Rewards. This class starts off with FLSA (snooze, I know). During the discussion of exemptions the instructor asks “Which exemption rule does HR typically fall under?”

Executive exemption qualifies if you are supervisor.

Computer exemption doesn’t qualify, typically.

Highly comp is redundant, let’s not even talk about it.

This leaves Administrative and Professional. For those of you that need your FLSA rules brushed up, here’s a quick break down:

According to the SHRM Learning System 2009, an employee qualifying under the administrative exemption must have a primary duty involving performance of office or nonmanual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer. Must exercise discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significant judgment.

A learned professional exemption encompasses jobs with a primary duty of the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work predominantly intellectual in character and including work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment. The advanced knowledge must also be in a field of science or learning and is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.  Specialized intellectual instruction restricts the exemption to professional where specialized academic training is a standard prerequisite for entrance.

So I’m sitting in my chair thinking the answer is obvious, Learned Professional.  Not because the certification is [Senior] Profession in Human Resources but because HR requires a level of learning beyond high school, it requires some sort of specialized education and every job posting I’ve seen for an HR position is requiring a degree or certification.

The instructors answer to his own question was Administrative.

Humph, administrative…whatever.

That’s what I thought for the next four hours.  HR is a learned profession, sure you can be trained without the higher level education or specialized study but it takes longer. Even about halfway through writing this I was convinced that was my point of view.  We are learned professionals and as HR grows and solidifies its position as a strategic partner some sort of specialized learning will be required to progress through the ranks in the field.

After doing a little reading and thinking it over, I can see the Administrative qualification. Our work directly relates to the management of the business operations.  As strategic partners we exercise independent judgment with respect to matters of significance; we carry out the strategic plan, that’s rather significant to the business operation.

Which exemption does HR fall under, Administrative or Professional? Yes, in my opinion. At least for right now.

Where do you see yourself and HR qualifying?