Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”), Unlawful Harassment, Discrimination and No Retaliation

California laws are constantly expanding protected conduct. For this reason, employers’ EEO, reasonable accommodation, reporting procedures, and whistleblower/no-retaliation policies must be updated to comply.

Employers with fifty or more employees are required to conduct harassment and anti-bullying training, which has resulted in many employers adopting anti-bullying policies, even though it is not (yet) required by law.

Employee Benefits

California’s paid sick leave law became effective January 1, 2015, with employees earning and accruing paid sick leave on July 1, 2015. Less than two weeks later, on July 13, 2015, the law was amended. Since then, local ordinances have been passed that impose additional restrictions requiring amendment. This means that even if you prepared a paid sick leave policy on or before January 1, 2015, it likely needs to be updated to comply with these changes. For employers who provide paid time off, these policies will need to be reviewed as well.

Changes to employer’s benefits—including vacation pay, pension benefits, profit sharing, bonuses, and group health insurance—need to be regularly updated if any of these benefits have changed at all. Due to the delays in many of the requirements under the Affordable Care Act, employers are advised to update these policies as well.

Leaves of Absence

Leaves of absence are complex depending on the size of the employer and the reason for the leave. State and federal laws—including, without limitation, the Family and Medical Leave Act, California Family Rights Act, disability leaves under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, (including special rules pertaining to pregnancy-related conditions), and workers’ compensation laws—all apply different standards and requirements that often apply concurrently. Review of these policies and processes cannot be emphasized enough.

In addition, California has its own specially recognized leaves: for examples, time off for breastfeeding; jury and court process leave; leaves for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking; school or daycare leave for employers with 25 or more employees (which was recently expanded); emergency rescue personnel leave; and paid leave for organ or bone marrow donation for employers with 15 or more employees.

Wage and Hour Compliance

Wage and hour litigation continues to be one of the costliest for California employers. Annually re-auditing classifications and job descriptions for exempt classifications, along with, updating non-exempt practices, policies, stand-alone agreements, certifications and waivers, as well as, taking control of non-exempt after hours’ work are critical.

Company’s Electronic Information, Technology & Social Media

Together with ESI consultants, we prepare policies, procedures, practices and implement solutions to control all Company ESI. We start with developing data maps specifying the types of ESI your Company creates, receives and uses, all the locations it may be stored, all methods of transmission, devices used, access, identification of proprietary information and limiting use, archiving, back-ups, and explore in detail any non-Company devices where ESI may lie. After auditing processes, our ESI consultant will recommend customized solutions to ensure that reasonable measures are being employed to protect all of your Company information from unauthorized access, archive native ESI, and preserve potentially relevant information for legal holds required by law, and collect in a defensible manner relevant ESI for investigations and to comply with a Company’s e-discovery obligations if legal action follows. We also aid in preparation of legal hold and preservation processes and notices, development of record retention policies, non-disclosure and no-solicitation agreements, agreements and processes to recover all Company information from separating employees, bring your own device policies and data breach notifications. The policies and processes together not only provide the best protection for all of your Company’s non-public information, but, it is required to protect your proprietary information as a “trade secret.” As a result, any unauthorized intrusions will likely be detected sooner with the digital footprints required to prove the unlawful conduct properly preserved. Once you have taken control of your ESI, e-discovery will be far less onerous and costly.

Health and Safety

With the increase in employee shootings in the workplace, federal and state laws have recently increased the penalties for employers who do not comply with, for example, Cal-OSHA, OSHA, and Labor Code requirements to provide a safe, secure, and healthy workplace. Implementing an effective workplace anti-violence policy in conjunction with a safety inspection of employers’ processes cannot be emphasized enough, especially in the wake of recent events.

Human Resource Forms and Stand-Alone Policies, Agreements and Certifications

It is vital that your company have up-to-date forms on various human resources matters that comply with the constant changes in California employment law. These include work schedule and pay rate acknowledgments; meal period waivers; on-duty meal period agreements (where applicable); meal and rest period policy acknowledgement; payroll practice forms including certification of hours worked, no off-the-clock work, and rest and meal periods provided every pay period; credit card authorizations; expense reimbursements; time records for exempt and non-exempt employees; time off certification forms; leave of absence forms compliant with CFRA, DFEH, workers’ compensation and any other applicable laws; benefit forms; personnel action forms; education and training forms; technology use policies; and separation and post-separation forms.

There are many factors to be considered when an employee leaves your Company, voluntarily or involuntarily. When an analysis of a particular situation leads us to believe that it would be prudent to offer the employee a severance agreement, we partner with you to prepare one that fits the situation, taking into account a number of variables that changes with the situation. These include, structuring severance and benefits, releases, references, reclassifying a termination as a layoff, non-disparagement, confidentiality provisions, return of Company information and any post-employment obligations. With our help, we will also lead you through the process to ensure that the employee feels respected and has an opportunity to respond, because this is often what fuels employees to sue their employers.