Overtime rule sets $143,988 salary threshold for highly compensated employees.

If the Department of Labor's new proposed overtime rule goes into effect, the stakes for employers that rely on the highly compensated employee exemption just got riskier. The rule calls for paying overtime to HCEs earning less than $143,988 when they work more than 40 hours per week.

Employees classified as HCEs don't need to fit neatly into the more common Fair Labor Standards Act exemptions, such as administrative, executive or professional. Instead, they need only perform one exempt duty--for example, supervision or scheduling. The idea is that employees who have specific, in-demand white-collar skills and are highly compensated shouldn't qualify for overtime just because they perform only one or two exempt duties.

But the HCE classification is not appropriate for...