232 | 2026 Cal-Peculiarities ©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP www.seyfarth.com performance of job duties (i.e., have the authority to make an independent choice free from immediate supervision with respect to matters of significance), and (5) be “primarily engaged” in exempt duties.192 Executive activities include interviewing, selecting, and training employees, setting and adjusting pay rates and work hours, directing the work of subordinates, evaluating employee efficiency and productivity, resolving employee complaints, disciplining employees, planning the work, determining techniques to use, deciding types of material, supplies and machinery to use, purchasing same, and engaging in work directly and closely related to those activities, or properly viewed as a means to carry them out. Nonexempt tasks include performing the same kind of work as subordinates, performing production or service work that is not part of the supervisory function, making sales or replenishing stock, performing routine clerical duties, checking or inspecting goods in a production operation, and performing maintenance work. No appreciation for multi-tasking. Federal law, in determining whether an employee is an exempt executive, recognizes that concurrent performance of exempt and nonexempt work can count as exempt for purposes of the executive exemption. For example, federal regulations interpreting the FLSA state: “An assistant manager can supervise employees and serve customers at the same time without losing the exemption.”193 In California it’s different. The Court of Appeal has held that an activity must be categorized as either exempt or nonexempt, based on the employee’s purpose for engaging in such activity.194 The Court of Appeal has subsequently clarified that a jury need only consider the manager’s “purpose” in performing certain tasks if the employer’s defense relies on this narrow category—work that is not inherently managerial but is “directly and closely related” to management and the supervision of employees—and there is substantial evidence supporting it.195 No sole-charge exemption. Federal law formerly provided for a “sole-charge exception” for executives at separate establishments, which allowed employers to treat the manager of an establishment as exempt irrespective of the primary duty test, so long as there were at least two full-time employees or their equivalents under the manager’s supervision at the location.196 California has never recognized this exception. 7.6.3 Administrative exemption A California exempt administrative employee must be primarily engaged in (1) customarily and regularly exercising discretion and independent judgment197 in the performance of intellectual work (office or non-manual work of substantial importance directly related to management policies or the general business operation of the employer or its customers; not production or sales work), and (2) directly assisting an exempt executive or administrator or, with only general supervision, (a) performing work along specialized or technical lines requiring special training, experience, or knowledge, or (b) executing special assignments.198 Exempt administrative employee activities include servicing the business by, for example, advising management on policy determinations, planning, negotiating, representing the company, purchasing, performing business research, and also by engaging in work that is directly and closely related to those activities, or properly viewed as a means of carrying them out. In Bell v. Farmers Ins. Exchange,199 the Court of Appeal considered whether insurance claims adjusters were administrative employees. Bell construed the Wage Orders to add a “role” test to the traditional “duties” test: Bell would not even reach the issue of whether the job satisfies the duties test unless the employee serves in an “administrative capacity.”200 Bell distinguished administrative work from “production” work, the latter being work needed to create whatever product or service the business sells, as opposed to administrative work necessary to support the production.201 Bell held that work of insurance claims adjusters was inherently production work, rendering them ineligible for the administrative exemption.202
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