Audit Yourself

“How can I know I’m legally compliant when they keep changing things?”

Your HR Survival Tip

It’s not easy but, of course, reading this newsletter each week will help you be aware of most changes. Every year, and throughout the year, both the Federal government and CA either enact a new law or change one of the required forms or brochures. They don’t send out emails or post big notices letting you know so it can be frustrating trying to stay on top of it.

There are some basic things you want in place to show that you are at least trying to be compliant. Audit yourself and see how well you’re doing:

• CA Non-Exempt Wage Theft Prevention Notice — This form has been around for several years but was revised in 2015 and, again, in 2016. The revisions are based on the paid sick leave laws. This form is provided to non-exempt (hourly) employees when they are hired AND each time their wage changes. By now, you should have at least 2-3 of these in each non-exempt employee’s personnel file if they’ve worked for you more than 2 years.
• Form I-9 — This form just changed last month and you can get more information from my  1/25/2017 newsletter and the new I-9 Form is available here.
• Wage Statements — CA has become very specific with exactly what should be on your wage statements (pay stubs). Lawsuits are being filed due to simple things like missing spaces and incomplete information. The next article will address this in more detail.
• Employment Law Poster — It’s a new year and you better have a 2017 version of the employment federal AND state law wall poster(s). There were several changes the new poster now includes. This means you can take down the miscellanous notices you put up last year… just make sure your new poster includes that information first. Also, don’t forget that your field employees need access to this information.
• IWC Posting — When you started the company, you were given the appropriate Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Order for your industry. This must be printed out and stuck on the wall next to your current employment law poster. There are 17 different versions, based on industry, so make sure you are posting the correct one.
• Harassment Prevention Policy — Last year, CA enacted a new law stating you must distribute a harassment prevention policy that was separate from anything in your Employee Handbook. This policy is required to included additional information specific to this law and was required to be translated.
• Paid Sick Leave Policy — If you don’t have a written sick leave policy, you are not legally able to stop employees from using all the sick leave they accrue. This means if they accrue 48 hours over the year, they could use it all. You can only limit their use to CA’s 24 hours if it’s in writing. In addition, if you don’t track usage, you can’t limit the use based on your memory. Track it in your payroll system!
• San Diego’s Paid Sick Leave — If you are located in the city of San Diego or have employees working within the city limits, you must follow San Diego’s paid sick leave law. This accrues at the same rate as CA (1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked) but has a higher accrual and use. Employees can accrue up to 80 hours but you can limit use to 40 hours per plan year. Again, put it in writing!
• Final Paychecks — All final paychecks must include any unused vacation or PTO as of that date; unused sick leave is not paid out. You must also provide the equivalent of a pay stub with all the details. If you are late delivering that check, CA could make you pay the employee for more days until they have the money in hand. There are three timelines here and none of them include direct deposit because that guarantees you’ll be late with the money. (1) If you are terminating (firing) the employee, you need the final check and pay stub in your hand at that meeting. (2) If the employee resigned with notice, you need to provide the final check and pay stub on their last day of work. (3) If the employee walked out without notice, you have 72 hours to get that final check and pay stub to them. That’s not business hours, that’s literally 72 hours from the time they walked out.

My audit checklist is really much longer but we’ll save some for another newsletter! If your audit shows you need to make some changes, do it immediately. It’s not that hard and it will take some worry off your shoulders. Let us know if you’d like help!