Throughout this century, California employment law has deviated from elsewhere in America, making it a difficult landscape for America’s employers to navigate without fear of litigation. Labor law attorneys from Seyfarth Shaw, LLP–the country’s top wage and hour litigator–share their best wage and hour advice for employers with a distributed workforce operating in California.
For more than 60 years, Seyfarth Shaw has been recognized as one of the “go-to” labor and employment firms for business by providing extraordinary, cost-effective results. EPAY Systems, Inc. has joined forces with Seyfarth Shaw to educate employers of distributed labor environments on how compliance risk can be minimized, especially in California.
3. EPAY Systems -- designed to meet the
needs of your complex,
distributed workforce
• Reduce your labor
costs by 5% or more
• Keep you in control
and in compliance
3
27. “Off-the-Clock” Work
•
The California Supreme Court endorsed Brinker’s off-the-clock
policy:
o It is your responsibility to clock in and clock out for every shift you
work. ... [Y]ou may not begin working until you have clocked in.
Working 'off the clock' for any reason is considered a violation of
Company policy. If you forget to clock in or out, or if you believe your
time records are not recorded accurately, you must notify a Manager
immediately, so the time can be accurately recorded for payroll
purposes.
•
Review timekeeping policies to ensure they are legally
compliant
27 |
36. Polling Question
•
Do you offer “personal days” or “floating holidays” that
may be used for any purpose (or almost any purpose)? If
yes, do you pay out California employees for their
unused days?
36
50. EPAY -- In Time with You
Complex pay rules?
Mobile workforce,
union contracts,
multiple job assignments?
No problem!
Uniquely flexible
50
51. Reduce your labor costs
Eliminate erroneous
pay
calculations, time
rounding,
and management
inconsistencies
Eliminate buddy
punching
Reduce costs
associated with
paper checks. Save
an average of $2.87
per pay period/per
employee.
or more!
Biometric time clocks
with camera and
finger print reader
51
52. Minimize Compliance Risk
•
•
•
•
•
•
Audit Trails
Overtime
Meal Breaks
Pay Differentials
Privacy and Security
Reduce Workers
Comp Claims
•
Did you have an
accident free day?
52
55. Upcoming Education
Compliance Webinar Series with Seyfarth Shaw LLP
•
•
•
Understanding the Affordable Care Act: Should You
Pay or Play? Sept 10: 12:00 cst
How to Avoid Costly Wage & Hour Pitfalls for
Healthcare Employers with a Distributed Workforce.
Sept 25: 12:00 cst
How to Avoid Costly Wage & Hour Pitfalls for
Employers in the Hospitality Industry. Nov 6: 12:00
cst
Register at www.EPAYsystems.com
55
Thanks John. Welcome to our webinar in our Compliance Series “How to Avoid Costly Wage & Hour Pitfalls for Construction, Engineering & Landscaping Employers” presented by EPAY Systems. My name is Michelle Lanter Smith. I am the Chief Marketing Officer here at EPAY Systems.I’d like to extend a warm welcome to all of you on the line with us today. We have over __ people joining us . . . From across the nation. As construction, engineering, and landscaping firms, all of you have a couple things in common –You all face a challenging, complex labor environment – one where you workers are distributed across many locations – making it difficult for consistent management policies and proceduresManaging compliance issues – such as Overtime pay, meal breaks, employee travel . . . is a real concern. And because of your distributed workforce, it’s even harder to manage.
Well, that’s where EPAY comes in. EPAY is in the time and labor management business. And we specialize in dealing with companies that have very complex and distributed labor environments. Our organization understands all of the challenges and limitations a company with employees scattered everywhere deals with as it relates to deploying new technology in the field, as well as managing and tracking it’s labor force.Distributed labor can present many challenges. Yet, labor is probably your largest cost.Complex pay rules, shift differentials, employees working one task in the morning and a different one in the afternoon. Employees working at customer sites or moving from job to job.These are tough for most time and attendance systems. But not for us. Our uniquely flexible pay rules engine can handle complex union rules and state regulations, not to mention your own complexities because of the nature of your business.Our web-based system, Blueforce, drives two main benefits for our clients:We help them reduce their total labor costs by more than 5%We help them lower their overall risk in facing compliancy issues – we have a built-in compliance orientated features . . . Right in our system
And speaking of compliance, it’s not something to be overlooked in today’s labor environment.Federal court filings of wage and hour class and collective actions have increased more than 500% since 2000.The Department of Labor (DOL) recently increased its investigative staff by 40% to crack down on non-compliant.Indeed, the vast majority of class and collective actions filed in state and federal courts continue to be wage-hour cases. And when they do coming knocking on your door, it’s expensive.The average reported settlement is $8.5 million per case, with a per plaintiff average of $5,600. Allegations run the gamut—unpaid overtime; off-the-clock-work; misclassification of exemption status; missed short or late meals and breaks; unpaid donning and doffing time; failure to pay minimum wage, and improper tip pooling. Could you be at RISK?Probably most of you on the line, would say “most definitely”That’s why today, I’m thrilled to introduce to you our guest speakers from Seyfarth Shaw for today’s webinar on compliance. They really do have the Best Tips for Staying out of Trouble.Seyfarth Shaw’s defense of employers in wage and hour litigation has become one of the hallmarks of the firm’s nationally recognized employment law practice. Its Wage & Hour litigation practice group consists of more than 80 attorneys in offices across the country. They have litigated hundreds of complex wage and hour cases in nearly every federal jurisdiction and in courts of almost every state, as well as before administrative agencies and on a multi-jurisdictional basis.Today we are fortunate to have two of the firms prominent partners in the California wage and hour space, Brandon McKelvey and Ann Marie Zaletel
Ann Marie:Ms. Zaletel is a partner in the Los Angeles office and a key member of the Workplace Compliance Solutions Group. Her practice is focused on the delivery of proactive, pragmatic solutions that help clients avoid litigation and develop internal compliance initiatives. Ms. Zaletel has assisted numerous clients with business restructuring and workforce reductions; conducted large exempt status and pay practices assessments, under both federal and California law; helped clients develop and implement centralized leave of absence and disability accommodation management processes; and developed tools and systems for reviewing hiring and selection and termination processes. She advises employers on the protection of their intellectual property and related matters, independent contractor relationships, drug and alcohol testing, and workplace violence issues. Ms. Zaletel regularly counsels clients on compliance with California employment law peculiarities and is an expert on California wage-hour law as well as on the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), and the California Pregnancy Disability Leave Law (PDL) and the interplay of these three statutes. Ms. Zaletel has extensive, broad-based employment litigation experience in California and federal courts, including jury trial experience. She has handled cases alleging wage-hour claims (including claims for unpaid overtime and California meal/rest period violations); failure to accommodate and disability discrimination claims; claims violation of the FMLA, CFRA, and PDL; and race, sex,, and age discrimination claims. Brandon: Mr. McKelvey is a Partner in the Labor and Employment Department of Seyfarth Shaw LLP with significant litigation experience in large class-actions, collective actions, and complex multi-party litigation. He is a member of the Wage & Hour Litigation Practice Group and concentrates his practice on defending companies against wage-and-hour and employment class and collective actions and advising companies on how to avoid wage-and-hour litigation.Mr. McKelvey is a Co-Author of the Chapter "Defending Rule 23 State Law Wage and Hour Class Actions" in the “Wage & Hour Collective and Class Litigation (The Definitive treatise on wage and hour litigation.)," ALM Law Journal Press, Chapter 7 (2012). He is also Co-Founder and Editor of the California Peculiarities Employment Law Blog, and he regularly blogs on legal developments related to class actions and wage-and-hour law atwww.wagehourlitigation.com and www.calpecs.com .Mr. McKelvey has the unique experience that includes litigating class actions on both sides of the bar, participating in a class action trial, and arguing in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the California Court of Appeal in class action cases. He was a lead attorney on one of the largest wage-and-hour class-action cases in California history and a member of the trial team for one of the largest class-action trials in California. He has defended a variety of large wage-and-hour class and collective actions alleging unpaid wages, misclassification of salaried employees, off-the-clock work, meal and rest period violations, misclassification of independent contractors, unreimbursed expenses, breach of contract, forfeiture of commissions or incentive bonuses, unfair business practices, wage statement violations, and other federal and state wage claims.Mr. McKelvey has handled class and collective litigation in a wide number of industries, including mortgage, retail, health care, grocery, warehouse and supply chain, insurance, computer and information technology, financial and professional services, specialized and temporary staffing, manufacturing, shipping and trucking, agriculture, education, and construction.
Now I’m sure many of you are going to have questions for Brandon and Ann Marie today. If you have one, simply type it in the Question box in bottom right section of your screen. We’ll be monitoring the questions and Brandon and Ann Marie will attempt to answer your questions throughout their presentation.So let’s get started . . .
Wow – what a lot of great information you’ve given us in such a short time. Now if you have question for Brandon or Ann Marie, just let us know. We’ll see a short survey when you close out today’s session. Just let us know and we’ll try to help get your question answered.I’d like to wrap up our time together today with a few words on EPAY and how we address your compliance needs.
Since 2001, EPAY has delivered innovative, efficient and effective solutions to address our clients critical time and labor management issues.Our client base is very diverse – serving some of the largest in Janitorial,Building Maintenance – Healthcare –– Security –– Foodservice – and Hospitality. You’ll see our clocks in some of the largest retailers, public sporting venues, and airports in the nation.One of the central themes we hear from our clients is that we can mirror the operating environment. Specifically we can handle all the various payroll permutations to ensure accuracy and compliancy for their organization. The flexibility of Blueforce is built-in; we meet our customers’ business needs without upfront custom costs.
Upon the implementation of our system, EPAY’s clients see an immediate Return on Investment, through the reduction of the following exposures.Elimination of buddy of punchingEliminate erroneous pay calculations,human error, and time roundingReduce payroll administration and distribution time associated with pay checks and pay stubsBy utilizing our advanced functionality the 5% reduction in Labor can climb to 9%.An example of this would be our real time alerts which can reduce overtime exposure and keep you on budget
Time and Wage cases in 2012 have surpassed discrimination cases for the most litigated exposure facing corporations. EPAY provides many features and reports that help mitigate exposure and provides access to historical data to dispute labor audit claims.Audit Trails – Changing an employee’s timecard without his/her approval is a surprisingly common FLSA violation. Blueforce flags all unapproved changes, so managers can address them before they become issues. Overtime - Calculating overtime properly is a huge litigation concern for employers. Blueforce tracks work time to the minute and automatically notes when an employee reaches overtime. Better yet, it can even alert managers before an employee hits the OT threshold. Meal Breaks – Improperly tracking or enforcing required meal breaks are another corporate Achilles’ heel. Blueforce asks employees if they’ve taken their proper meal breaks, advises you of deviations, and can even generate real-time alerts when a meal break is missed. Pay Differentials – When a single employee is paid varying hourly rates, depending on shift or task, it can create headaches for your payroll staff. Because we ‘configure’ your pay differentials into Blueforce at the outset, it accurately calculates employee pay effortlessly. Privacy and Security - Our time-tracking system keeps you in complete compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which protects employees’ confidential information. We can even provide you with documented proof that your employees and managers only have access to what they should. Workplace Safety – We know on-the-job injuries are a real concern and that Workers’ Compensation claims are a very real expense. That’s why we’ve built a rather unique safeguard into our punch-out procedure. At the end of each shift, employees are asked if they had a “safe day.” The benefits are two-fold: 1) if an accident occurs, you’re instantly in the loop, and 2) if a questionable claim is made later, you have some documentation of your own.
EPAY has provided solutions to the most complex labor environments, encompassing hundreds of collective bargaining agreements.ABM Industries – 110,000, across 6500 sitesHealthcare Services Group 30,000 eeacroos 3,000 sitesCompass Group – 20,000 across 2500 sites Crothall - 16,000 eeUnicco - 16,000 eeKBS – 15,000 ee
In working with our clients EPAY has understood the importance of mirroring our clients environment and making our system as user friendly as possible.Upon the tabulation of punch data, EPAY’s pay rules engine allows our system to compute gross payroll regardless of the complexity of the clients pay rule. Our competitors struggle with this development and often time costs their clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in professional services fees.Understanding the challenges that end users face in remote environments, EPAY has developed various forms of data collections methods that ensure two things for our clients:There will always be a way for us to collect and transmit data (Wireless, LAN, WiFi, DialUp)NEXT SLIDE . . .
That’s all the time we have today. Thank you to all of you for joining us today. We’d like to be your time and labor management provider. At EPAY, we’re IN TIME WITH YOU.Until next time, then, have a wonderful rest of your day. Good-bye.