Many employers fear that allowing employees to work from home will result in lowered productivity and misrepresented time sheets. However, studies have shown that allowing employees to work from home on occasion has numerous benefits, including improved morale and better employee retention. But employers are often uncertain about their responsibilities for managing risk. Who is responsible if an employee becomes injured on the job? What about HIPAA considerations?
Start your new year on the right foot by auditing your human resources systems and records. To diminish the possibility of legal issues and to ensure that your practice seeks to comply with labor and employment laws, it is important to perform an HR audit. An audit can include timekeeping and wage statements and all of the following.
Protections for nursing mothers in California were significantly expanded under a bill signed into law in October by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Senate Bill 142 clarifies employer obligations to provide breaks and safe, private locations that include specified accommodations. The bill increases penalties for noncompliance and requires that employers implement a written lactation accommodation policy beginning Jan. 1, 2020.
With planned power shut-offs developing across California in attempt to avoid wildfires, employers are wondering how they are to compensate their nonexempt employees when businesses are unable to be open for work due to power failures. Employers generally are obligated to pay “reporting time pay” to hourly employees when these employees are required to report for work and aren’t provided at least half of their usual hours for the day.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2020, it will be more difficult for most employers in California to classify workers as independent contractors, rather than employees, and in some cases will make employees out of independent contractors. And although CDA secured an exemption for dentists, employee classification still isn’t clear-cut, and dentists will need to err on the side of caution when classifying their workers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a new bill extending the deadline for sexual harassment prevention training. Under SB 778, employers with five or more employees now have until Jan. 1, 2021, to complete the mandatory one- or two-hour employee trainings to be compliant.
With so much emphasis on the need for employers to establish written policies mandated by federal, state and local laws, it’s easy to overlook the important day-to-day employee management policies on everything from hygiene and smoking to use of personal electronic devices. Discussed below are four areas of employee conduct and attire expectations that you might consider addressing through a workplace policy, if you don’t already have one in place.
A new state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of hair textures or protective hairstyles that are historically associated with race. Senate Bill 188, also known as the CROWN Act, was signed in July by Gov. Gavin Newsom and will take effect Jan. 1, 2020. California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act was amended by the law to include in the definition of race “traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles.”
When it comes to your dental practice, one of the most important documents in your HR toolkit is your employee manual. Not only can definitive employee policies resolve disputes, but they can thwart issues before they arise, protecting both the employer and the employee from any sort of misperception and the potential for litigation.
