Two different problems live here. One is whether you're paying people correctly under the law. The other is whether you're paying them enough to keep them. Both are expensive to get wrong, in different ways.
Classification is where the money is
Misclassification is the single most expensive routine HR mistake, and it's usually made in good faith.
The federal salary threshold for the white-collar exemptions is $684 a week, or $35,568 a year, after the Department of Labor formally rescinded the higher 2024 figures in May 2026. A lot of employers reclassified staff in anticipation of $58,656 and never followed the reversal.
But salary is the test people fixate on, and it's the easier one. The duties test decides most real cases. What someone is paid doesn't make them exempt if what they actually do doesn't qualify, and job titles decide nothing.
The exposure is asymmetric. A misclassified employee can be owed back overtime for years, plus an equal amount again in liquidated damages, plus their legal fees. That arithmetic is why it's worth being sure rather than probably right.
Tipped staff, if you have them
In Orange County this is where most wage exposure sits. Hospitality is the region's largest employer, and the tip credit is the least understood mechanism in wage and hour.
The direct cash wage goes to $11.98 on September 30, 2026 as the standard minimum reaches $15.00. The $3.02 tip credit isn't moving, so the whole increase comes from you. If tips plus cash wage don't reach the full minimum in a workweek, you make up the difference. And the new federal reporting requires qualified tips to be tracked separately from mandatory service charges and automatic gratuities, which don't qualify.
→ Florida minimum wage: what changes on September 30 · Independent contractor classification: the 2026 rules
What we do
Classification review. Exempt and non-exempt against both the salary and duties tests, and employee versus contractor against federal and state tests
Pay structure. Job leveling, ranges, and progression, so pay decisions have a reason behind them
Market benchmarking. What roles actually pay in your market
Pay equity review. Where comparable people are paid differently, and whether there's a defensible reason
Tipped-wage arithmetic. Tip credit, tip pooling, service charge versus gratuity, and the reporting
Bonus and incentive design
We don't run your payroll
We have partners for payroll processing, and we'll train your people to run it in-house if you'd rather.
What we do is make sure it's right: that your classifications hold up, your overtime calculates correctly, and the rate changes on time when Florida's minimum wage moves in September. Processing payroll is a button. Payroll being correct is an HR problem, and it's the one that generates claims.