When it comes to avoiding costly lawsuits, keeping careful track of employee exemption status under the Fair Labor Standards Act is top-of-mind for companies, according to a new survey report from labor and employment firm Littler Mendelson and its client support service for employers, Littler XMPT.

The “XMPT Survey Report” [PDF] reveals that companies, which are facing a more litigious environment overall around wage-and-hour issues, are seeing challenges by employees who believe they have been unfairly exempted from overtime and wage-and-hour provisions as a major legal stumbling block.

Roughly half the respondents to the survey, which collected data from 325 C-suite executives, human resources professionals, and in-house counsel, said they are concerned about the possibility of misclassification litigation or a U.S. Department of Labor audit in the near future. Lee Schreter, a Littler shareholder and co-chair of the firm’s wage-and-hour practice group, said their fears are well-justified, citing what she calls “misclassification creep.” “What it refers to is every year we see some new position that’s been classified as exempt for years challenged in the courts,” she told CorpCounsel.com.

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Tags: employee exemption status, Littler Mendelson, survey report, the Fair Labor Standards Act