The HR blog Fistfull of Talent raises a concern I think a lot of HR professionals feel. See article “Hey Employment Law ‘Experts’, You’re Killing My Profession.” Kris Dunn expresses the all too common sentiment that employment lawyers are not advising their clients – but are rather scaring them into inaction. Kris uses the example of advice some lawyers are providing about whether or not companies should use social networking sites and Google to conduct background checks on job applicants. Taking the conservative approach, many lawyers, as Kris notes, advise against using these new technologies out of concern that it could create potential discrimination claims. (Side note to Kris – I warned awhile ago that companies should be using the Internet to conduct background checks.)

Kris’ analysis is right on for a number of reasons. First, lawyers are trained to point out the risks of any situation to properly advise their clients. Second, lawyers are notoriously behind the technology curve. Most do not know what “new” technologies are being used or how to use them, and this creates concern as anyone is scared about what they do not know about.

Employment lawyers need to take heed of this critique. HR professionals have jobs to perform and companies to run. They need legal advice that helps them perform their jobs better – not scare them into failing to change and keeping up with the times.

Employment lawyers need to recognize that change entails risk. However, companies always have to change, and lawyers need to help companies navigate this risk, not prevent them from doing anything new.

Note to HR professionals

As you know, the HR profession is changing a lot given today’s new technologies. New issues are creating a lot of uncertainty. Issues such as how to use social networking sites to conduct background checks, monitoring employee’s internet use, and determining "hours worked" when employees always have a smart device on them.

When looking for legal advice about these issues, you need to be certain that your lawyer is familiar and up-to-date with the technology available. Does the lawyer who you are seeking legal advice from have a Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn account? Do they use an iPhone or Blackberry? If the answer to these questions are ‘no’ – don’t be surprised if their advice is to avoid these “new” technologies.

Start-up companies are usually saving every penny and operating on small margins. Simply the cost of defending an employment lawsuit could bring the entire venture into jeopardy. Here is a list of ten common California employment law mistakes made by start-ups:

  1. Assuming everyone can be paid a salary, and not paying overtime for hours over 8 in one day or 40 in one week. For a company to not pay overtime, it has the burden of proof to establish that the employee meets an exemption to California’s overtime laws. The exemptions are based on the amount of pay the employee receives and the duties the employee performs.
  2. Not researching particular laws that apply to the industry or city. For example, businesses in San Francisco have to provide for paid sick leave.
  3. Not having a meal and rest break policy. It goes without saying, every company in California needs a meal and rest break policy – and evidence that this policy is regularly communicated to employees.
  4. Not recording meal breaks. Employers are required to not only provide meal breaks, but also keep records of when the employee started and stopped the meal break.
  5. Not paying accrued vacation when employment is severed. Accrued and unused vacation is considered wages under California law, and needs to be paid out at the end of employment regardless of whether the employee is fired or quits.
  6. Overestimating the enforceability of covenants not to compete. Nine times out of ten, covenants not to compete are unenforceable in California.
  7. Underestimating the importance of an employee handbook.
  8. Assuming any worker can be classified as an independent contractor. Just like exempt employees, employers will bear the burden of proof when it comes to classifying independent contractors. Generally, the test is how much control the employer has over the worker.
  9. Withholding the money necessary to hire an HR manager knowledgeable with California law.
  10. Not reimbursing employees for business related expenses, such as travel expenses. Under Labor Code section 2802, employers are required to repay employees who pay for business related items out of their own pocket.

The California Supreme Court denied review of a lower appellate court decision in the class action of Chau v. Starbucks. The issue in the case is whether store managers, who as part of their duties also served customers, could share in the tips which were left for all servers. The trial court took the technical line that Labor Code section 351 prohibits any "agent" of the employer from sharing in tips. At the trial court level, plaintiffs won a $105 million award for restitution over the disputed tips for a four year period.

However, on appeal, this award was reversed. In a favorable ruling for employers, the appellate court took a more common sense reading of Labor Code section 351, explaining:

There is no decisional or statutory authority prohibiting an employer from allowing a service employee to keep a portion of the collective tip, in proportion to the amount of hours worked, merely because the employee also has limited supervisory duties. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment and order the trial court to enter judgment in Starbucks’s favor.

The Supreme Court’s decision not to review the appellate court’s decision establishes that decision as precedent and binding in California. Click here for a more detailed analysis of the appellate court’s decision. 

However, employers are cautioned to review the appellate decision (and obtain legal advice) before allowing managers to share in tip sharing arrangements. For example, the Starbucks ruling involved the situation where there was a "collective tip box" that "a customer would necessarily understand the tip will be shared among the employees who provide the service” and that the managerial employee is part of the team that provided the service.

Human resource professionals and hiring managers have developed a better way to gain insight into new hire’s backgrounds: information posted in social networking sites. About two years ago, I was often asked whether it was legal to google a job applicant, or to review his or her information posted on the Internet. While some lawyers took the conservative approach to this “new technology”, it has become common practice to search applicant’s backgrounds on the Internet (see this post about Court’s ruling that MySpace postings are not private).  I’ve even made the case before that failure to do a simple Internet check could create liability for a company if the result could have easily informed the company that the applicant had a bad history.

However, there are two basic problems now: (1) there are too many sites to search, and (2) if someone has a common name it is impossible to narrow the search to that particular person.

Spokeo.com is a new company that basically makes these on-line background checks easier. Guy Kawasaki points out that this service can be very beneficial to an HR manager who is tasked with checking out applicants’ backgrounds by searching social networking sites. The key break through for the website is that it searches for an individual’s email address. This makes it very helpful to find particular information about an applicant that has a common name.

What is the cost?

It is $2.95 per month for one year, or $4.95 per month for three months. This seems well worth the cost to save hours searching social networking sites.

To try the service, click here.

Related articles:

Job Applicants Asked To Provide Their Passwords To Social Networking Sites

 

 

  1. Not drafting job descriptions because the employer believes that they are either useless or are not needed in small to medium sized companies. 
  2. Not listing the essential functions of the job (i.e., the primary purpose the job exists).
  3. Listing functions that are not the essential functions of the job as essential functions. Employers should separate these “other” functions as just that. Employers should also have language that specifies that the job may change, and employees may be required to perform other duties as required.
  4. Using legalese. Employers should use concrete terms that everyone can understand.
  5. Making the description too long.
  6. Using terms and/or abbreviations that only others in the company understand what they mean.
  7. Not updating job descriptions and simply use the ones drafted in 1990. Times are changing very fast, and an employer’s expectations of its employees in 1990 are probably vastly different than compared to 2009.
  8. Containing typos and poor grammar. A job description may be the critical document in employment litigation, a judge and/or jury may have to interpret the meaning of the job description, and therefore it is important to take time and care in drafting the language of the job description.
  9. Not referring to the job descriptions when conducting employee performance reviews or when addressing its liability against a potential ADA lawsuit.
  10. Not having outside legal counsel review the job descriptions (come on, you knew I had to put this one in).

Plaintiffs Hernandez and Lopez were employed by Hillsides Children Center, Inc., which provided services to children with special needs and who were abused. Hillsides discovered that someone was accessing pornographic websites on a computer located in the Plaintiffs’ office late in the evening.

The employer, citing its mission to protect abused children and to protect itself from any legal liability, installed a video camera in Plaintiffs’ office to identify the perpetrator. Because the websites were only being access at night, the video camera did not record any of Plaintiffs’ activities during the day, and was only turned on at night. The perpetrator was not caught.  But Plaintiffs’ discovered the video camera in the office, and filed this lawsuit for violation of their privacy rights.

The California Supreme Court noted that to succeed on their privacy claims, Plaintiffs would need to prove that:

  1. The plaintiff must possess a legally protected privacy interest,
  2. The plaintiff’s expectations of privacy must be reasonable, and
  3. The plaintiff must show that the intrusion is so serious in nature, scope, and actual or potential impact as to constitute an egregious breach of social norms.

The Court noted that Plaintiffs were able to establish violation of the first two elements in this case– that the employer intentionally intruded into the Plaintiffs’ office in which they had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Offensiveness of the employer’s action

However, the Court held that Plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proof for the third element. First, the Court held that the degree and setting of the intrusion into Plaintiffs’ privacy was not very high. The Court noted that the “place, time, and scope” of defendant’s surveillance was not highly offensive. Second, the Court looked at the employers motive and justifications for conducting the surveillance – which had no element of being improper in this case. Given nature Hillsides’ business of helping abused children, it was taking proper action to prevent any possible harm to them. Given these factors, the Court found that the Plaintiffs could not, as a matter of law, prove that a reasonable person would find the intrusion into their privacy offensive.

Take away for employers

  • Do not assume that you have the right to monitor employees during working hours. As the case establishes, employees still have reasonable expectations of privacy at work.
  • Do not assume a computer monitoring policy applies to video and audio surveillance. The employer in this case tried to argue that the computer monitoring policy diminished Plaintiffs’ expectation of privacy at work, but the Court disagreed because the policy never mentioned the possibility that employees could be videotaped at work.

The case, Hernandez v. Hillsides, Inc. can be read here.

The Federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009. However, because California’s minimum wage is $8.00 per hour, the increase in the Federal minimum wage does not affect California employers, as employers need to pay the higher of the two minimum wages.  Here is an interesting table of the history of California’s minimum wage amounts. 

Other notes about California minimum wage:

  • There is no tip credit allowed in California for tipped employees. Employers still must pay $8.00 per hour even for employees who receive tips while working.  Click here for a list of states that do recognize a tip credit. 
  • Employees cannot not waive their right to receive minimum wage (see Labor Code section 1194(a)).
  • There are a very limited number of employees who are exempt from minimum wages, such as outside salespersons or family members of the employer.
  • If an employee prevails in a lawsuit for unpaid minimum wages, he or she is also entitled to attorney’s fees as costs of the suit under Labor Code section 1194(a) (which, often times are larger than the minimum wage amounts not paid in the first place). 
     

The line between when employees are on or off the clock have become more and more grey with the advent of Blackberries, iPhones, and providing employees with remote login access from their homes. On-call time is considered compensable work time if it is spent primarily for the benefit of the employer and its business. In making this determination, the on call waiting time is spent predominantly for the employer’s benefit depends on two considerations: (1) the parties’ agreement, and (2) the degree to which the employee is free to engage in personal activities.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Owens v. Local No. 169, Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers (9th Cir. 1992) 971 F.2d 347, 350-355, provided a nonexclusive list of factors courts would examining in determining whether the employee was free to engage in personal activities (note that none of the factors is determinative by itself):

  1. whether there was an on premises living requirement;
  2. whether there were excessive geographical restrictions on employee’s movements;
  3. whether the frequency of calls was unduly restrictive;
  4. whether a fixed time limit for response was unduly restrictive;
  5. whether the on-call employee could easily trade on-call responsibilities;
  6. whether use of a pager could ease restrictions; and
  7. whether the employee had actually engaged in personal activities during call-in time.

In addition, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement published this guideline on call back time and stand by time. Employers need to conduct a review of each case when on-call time may be an issue in order to determine whether pay is owed.
 

A Florida city revised its dress code last week to require that employees wear underwear to work. The dress code also prohibits provocative clothing, halter tops and piercings other than in the employees’ ears. I was asked to speak on the subject of dress codes about two weeks ago. The timing was just a bit too late, and I missed this great illustration.

The story gets even better. The mayor of Brooksville cast the only opposing vote to implementing the new dress code, citing that a mandate to wear underwear “takes away freedom of choice.” This gives a new meaning to the term “pro-choice."

So is the city’s “pro-underwear” position legal?

Probably. Employers can generally set dress code standards for their employees as long as the policies do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, disability, or any other protected status.

If the dress code conflicts with an employee’s religion, an employer may have to analyze whether there is a reasonable accommodation that it can provide to the employee. In the context of providing an employee a reasonable accommodation for dress issues, the US Supreme Court noted that in the context of religion accommodations, employers do not have to provide accommodations that are more than a “de minimis” cost. See TWA v. Hardison 432 U.S. 63 (1977).

Employers also have to be aware of obscure state and local laws that may also prohibit employers from implementing other prohibitions. For example, here in California, the Government Code specifically addresses employees’ right to wear pants to work. Section 12947.5 states:

(a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to refuse to permit an employee to wear pants on account of the sex of the employee.
(b) Nothing in this section shall prohibit an employer from requiring employees in a particular occupation to wear a uniform.
 

While there are some laughs at the Florida city’s expense, employers do need to pay close attention to their dress code policies to ensure that they are compliant.  Employers also need to ensure that HR is properly trained to deal with complaints and requests for reasonable accommodations when they arise.

The City of Bozeman, Montana asked job applicants to provide their user names and login information to common social networking sites on their job applications. As you may expect, this has caused a major uproar from privacy groups.

Just over one-year ago, I was asked by employers about what legalities were involved in Googling a job applicant, or looking at their on-line presence before making a hiring decision. It seems now, however, that once employees realized that their on-line presence is not so private, they began to restrict who could view this information on the Internet.

The city of Bozeman apparently was not happy with the increasing sophistication of people posting information on the Internet, resulting in it being shutout of viewing job applicants’ Facebook pages. So the city simply started to ask job applicants to provide their user names and passwords to social networking sites. The application provides:

Please list any and all current personal or business Web sites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.

Many people and groups, such as the ACLU, have objected to this request arguing that it violates the job applicants’ privacy rights. As a result of the criticism it received, the city said that it will likely remove the request for user names and passwords, but may still require job applicants to “friend” the city in Facebook so that the city could still see what is posted.

I think this policy goes too far. Irrespective of the legal privacy questions raised, I do not think it would be a good hiring practice for an employer. I, for one, (and I think a lot of other people) would simply refuse to provide this information. If the city disqualifies job applicants who do not provide the information (which is claims it does not do), it is limiting its potential workforce of qualified people. Employees using these technologies are computer savy and are at least motivated enough to learn and try new technology. The job applicants who most likely will not have a problem in providing this information are those who do not know how to use a computer or the Internet and do not have any social networking accounts. Are these really the best qualified employees? In today’s workforce, a working knowledge of the Internet and social networking sites is almost a necessity. Businesses are learning about these new mediums and are discovering new ways of advertising and conducting business. It would be a detriment to not have employees who at least know what technology is available and is commonly used.

I also think that this incident will begin the discussion about people’s privacy interest in this type of information. The more and more people begin to “live” on the Internet, state legislatures will probably begin to define specifically what employers can and cannot ask for from employees.

Other articles of interest I’ve written related to employee’s on-line privacy in the workplace:

California Appellate Court Holds Postings On MySpace.com Are Not Private

Can An Employer Be Liable For Not Googling A Job Applicant?

Google Latitude In The Workplace