To-Do’s for New Year

It’s the beginning of another year and, on January 1, 2016, several laws went into effect to help celebrate:

• California’s new minimum wage has increased to $10.00 per hour. If any of your employees required a raise to bring them up to the new minimum or you made wage changes for other hourly employees due to this increase, you need to issue a new Wage Theft Prevention Notice to each of them. Remember, it’s issued upon hire and whenever you change their hourly wage.
• The increase to minimum wage automatically increased the minimum salary you must pay salaried (exempt) employees. The new minimum is $41,600 per year or $3,466.67 per month or $800 per week… regardless of how many or how few hours they actually work. Paying at this minimum means those employees will not have any unpaid days off or you’ll drop below the minimum and turn them into hourly employees.
• While driving, make sure your employees are not using headsets or ear buds in both ears because that’s now against the law. Only one ear can be “covered.”
  California’s Fair Pay law means you need to start documenting your justifications for what you pay each employee. Going forward, you’ll need that documentation to prove why one person is paid more than another. You can use experience, training, education, etc. but you do want to have a justification why the salary/wage is different between two employees who appear to be doing similar types and levels of work.
• Have you purchased your 2016 state/federal employment law poster yet? Keep in mind that it needs to be placed in an area frequently visited by the employees. If you have employees in the field, you may need to get the poster information to them another way.
• IRS (Internal Revenue Service) has updated the mileage rate to $0.54. While this isn’t employment law, it does affect most of you. Basically, the courts feel it shouldn’t cost an employee anything to work for you. So, if you aren’t paying at least the current IRS rate for mileage, the employee has an argument to use.

It’s a new year and you should start off compliant. Add the above items to your New Year’s resolutions… they are bound to be easier than losing weight!