No one is immune from wage-hour payouts. Not even a Human Resources consultant.

California HR consulting firm TriNet has reportedly agreed to pay approximately $1 million in overtime and liquidated damages to 267 employees. The payment is in settlement of a wage-hour investigation conducted by the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Labor.

According to the DOL, TriNet increased employees' salaries and believed that the higher salaries were enough to make the employees exempt. The DOL said that TriNet had settled a similar claim in 2012.

However, a spokesperson for TriNet said that salaries were increased to reflect the employees' increased job responsibilities, not to "guarantee" that the employees would be exempt. The TriNet spokesperson said that the company cooperated in the DOL investigation and did not admit any liability.

The report of the settlement, in the April 18 edition of Bloomberg BNA, did not indicate the job titles or responsibilities of the employees who will receive the settlement. However, after visiting TriNet's website, I would guess it is IT people.

Image Credit: From flickr, Creative Commons license, by Purple Slog.