Best Practices For California Employers

I apologize for the long post in advance, but I’ve been receiving many questions about exempt vs. non-exempt classification of employees lately. This article is the first in a series of articles to help employers tread through this technical area, hopefully in a manner that makes it at least somewhat easier for employers to understand.

The Wage Theft Protection act of 2011 added Labor Code section 2810.5 requiring all private California employers to provide a written notice containing specific information to non-exempt employees upon hire. Below are five indispensable items employers should understand about the Notice to Employee (“Notice”) required under the law.

1. All private employers, regardless of size

In litigation, the following five issues make defending an employment lawsuit much more difficult.

1. No documentation.
No matter what type of employment litigation is at issue – wage and hour claims, leave issues, or harassment claims – the amount of documentation an employer has dramatically increases the odds of prevailing in litigation. I would

Happy New Year.  I started the Friday’s Five articles at the beginning of last summer, and the interest in the articles has been astounding, so I appreciate everyone who has read them and provided comments and feedback. If you have any topics you would like me to address, please let me know. With that

Let me start with the lawyer’s disclaimer up-front: this Friday’s Five list has no scientific or statistical backing whatsoever, I generated it based on the cases I’ve been litigating in 2014. My experience may be (and probably is) skewed a bit, but nevertheless California employers should pay attention to the following areas of potential litigation.

In my last post, I wrote about what steps employers should talk to comply with the new employment laws for 2015. This post discusses more generally what employers should audit on a yearly basis. And with the year coming to a close, now is a great time to review these five items:

1. Expense reimbursement

The laws passed in 2014 added some new posting requirements and resulted in the need to
revise some of the notices California employers are required to provide to employees. This Friday’s Five Best Practices article sets out five items California employers should review before the start of 2015:

1. Review newly published frequently asked questions

The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) published a new poster employers are required to post regarding California’s new sick leave law. Under the new law (Labor Code Section 247) employers are required to display a poster in a conspicuous place requiring certain information about the new rights of employees to receive paid sick

Happy Holidays! With the holidays upon us, it is a good time for employers to review their holiday schedule and these five reminders about holidays and holiday pay under California law.

1. California employers are not required to provide employees time off for holidays.

There is no requirement that California employers provide time off (except

President Obama’s announcement of his controversial plan to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants to remain in the country who meet certain requirements raises a few employment and immigration issues for employers. Putting the politics aside, it is a good time for employers to review their obligations under the law to confirm a worker’s eligibility to