Would it be legal for company policy to classify its sales workers as
being full-time if and only if they meet specified sales goals?  To be
clear I'm discussing "outside sales" here, and the salespeople are
nonexempt.  They would still be paid according to their *reported*
hours (OT pay in accordance with labor laws if 40+ hours are reported)
but when it comes to company benefits such as group health insurance,
I would like to offer it to those salespeople who meet the above
definition of full-time.  In particular I am concerned that my health
insurance company -- who requires that my employees be "full-time" in
order to be eligible for coverage -- will balk if I have salespeople
receiving insurance if they are not working as many hours as the
insurance company would like to see.  My whole intent here is to
provide coverage to as many employees as possible...and in any case I
feel productivity is a better barometer of who is deserving than
reported hours.  As my insurance company does not define "full time" I
am wondering if having the above definition as clearly-stated company
policy would suffice if the insurance company should ever discover
that we have people insured with fewer hours than the insurance
company would like.  What do you think the chances are that the
insurance company would cancel coverage for those employees in that
event? I realize that with this I'm asking more for an opinion, but if
it has some basis I'd love to hear it.  Also -- and this is quite
important -- to paraphrase my opening question, I would like to know
that I would not be breaking any laws by taking this approach.  The
last thing I would want would be to be charged with fraud when all I
want is the best for my employees...even those who don't work 40
hours.

The definitions vary from state to state, so your location would helpful. Neil

Sorry, I guess that *would* be useful.  I'm in Pennsylvania

When Wal-Mart massages the truth for press releases they claim to have
a certain percentage of "full time" workers. Their figures include
anybody with 32 hours a week. Your state's employment security
department may have the answer for you.

Thanks diamondhead...I didn't even know there was such a thing as an
employment security department, but I'll be sure to check it out next
week.

FYI...I am closing this because I got the answer I needed from the US
office of Employee Benefit Security Administration.