There are major consequences for improperly classifying employees' exemption statuses, including liability for back wages (and sometimes, double, triple or even quadruple back wages). In fact, liability for a single misclassified employee earning $35,000 annually and averaging 5 hours of overtime each week could be as high as $38,000 – or $3.8 million for 100 similarly situated employees, based on the 2020 rule.