Executive, administrative, and professional employees: what the duties actually require

Chapter 2 covered the salary tests that apply across the board. This chapter works through the primary-duty test for each white-collar exemption — executive, administrative, learned and creative professional, and the handful of professions that skip the salary test entirely.

In this chapter

A manager needs real authority over people, not just a supervisory-sounding title or a department on an org chart, to qualify as an exempt executive.
The administrative exemption turns on discretion and independent judgment about matters that affect the business, not on doing office or desk work.
Teachers, doctors, and lawyers can be exempt professionals without meeting any salary test at all — one of the exceptions to the salary rules from Chapter 2, alongside the bona fide business owner and outside sales employees.