It is also unlawful for an employer to segregate, limit, or classify employees in any way that will deprive them of employment opportunities or affect their employment status.

Human Resource departments are also unaccustomed to classifying employees according to these informal roles that are so vital to innovation.

Wal-Mart says comparisons with other retailers are unfair, because it classifies employees differently; if department managers were included in the totals, women would make up 60 percent of the managerial ranks.

Within those counties, SchoolsFirst FCU serves employees of the following educational entities (serving both classified and certificated employees):

Online tools help visitors assess the safety of their workplaces, areas where they may be at risk of not complying with labor laws, the workplace posters they need and whether they are properly classifying employees as exempt or non-exempt.

"We receive complaints from businesses that think competitors have an advantage because they classify employees as outside contractors," said Ellen H. Murphy, an assistant to the commissioner of Internal Revenue for public affairs.

But insurance companies contend that some leasing companies defrauded them by paying premiums on fewer workers than they had, or by classifying high-risk employees like oilfield workers in low-risk - and less costly - categories like clerks.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had wrestled with the issue and, in 1972, issued Guidelines declaring that practices classifying employees based on pregnancy-related conditions were "prima facie violations of Title VII."

The law varies with each group, so check with state and federal requirements when classifying employees as exempt and non-exempt.

In some states where full disability payments are modest, employers have had an incentive to classify injured employees they don't care for as permanently disabled in order to remove them from their jobs.