Labor law compliance regarding breaks can be tricky. For example employees in (at least) California are owed a 30 minute unpaid break if they work at least 5 hours. However if they're compelled to clock back in early from their break for any reason, then 1) any amount of break they did take should then be paid, and 2) their employer should pay them an extra 1 hour of pay at their regular rate of pay. If an employee would rather wave their unpaid break and get back on the clock, they may with no penalty to the employer.
As you can imagine, this can be very hard to follow and has opened up employers in California to an extraordinary level of liability as tracking these breaks can be very difficult. Not only that, most systems don't properly calculate regular rate of pay, adding to potential legal issues for employers. Luckily at Workforce, we have a solution. This article will walk you through the configuration you need to be compliant on this issue.
1) Set up break rules
Navigate to /settings/breaks and check the two check boxes at the top for "Enable break rules" and "Require staff to nominate which break they are taking". The latter will require employees to select the specific break that they're clocking in for, which might be new for some users.
Then set up as many mandated meal breaks as you need. Just be sure to check the checkbox. The "Paid Break" checkbox will be disabled because by law these breaks are unpaid.
2) Enable remote clock ins
If you are not using the timeclock app and need employees to clock in using their mobile app, navigate to /settings/timesheets#remote_clockin and check "Enable remote clock-ins". This is required for the system to ensure compliance.
3) Setup Shift Questions
Navigate to /settings/shift_questions.
You have a few options of how to approach compliance here. We have two types of shift questions you can ask your employees. "Meal Break Acknowledgement" and "Meal Break Question".
Meal Break Question will ask your employee a yes or no question about whether they waved their break. If they select "No" then the break will become paid and they will be awarded 1 extra hour of pay at their regular rate of pay. If they select "Yes" then the break is unpaid an no penalty is assumed by the employer.
Meal Break Acknowledgement will simply ask them to acknowledge that they are returning to work too early, and then the break will become paid and they will be awarded 1 extra hour of pay at their regular rate of pay. This option is for employers who want to play it extra safe, however it might lead to extra losses for the employer. We recommend option 1, the Meal Break Question.
Setting up the question for compliance would look something like this.
When: Break finish
Only If: Earlier than scheduled
Lenience (mins): 0
Ask: Word this question so that it pays the extra hour if they answer "No". So something like: "Are you voluntarily waving your right to your meal break on your own accord?"
Then: Meal Break Question: Add Allowance
This will handle cases where employees don't take their full break. For also handling the scenario where they don't take their break at all, set up a second question that looks something like this:
When: Clock Out
Only If: Always Ask
Note: "Always Ask" will actually only ask if they miss their mandated meal break completely. It won't ask otherwise.
Ask: Word this question so that it pays the extra hour if they answer "No". So something like: "Did you voluntarily wave your right to your meal break on your own accord?"
Then: Meal Break Question: Add Allowance
This will compel employees to think carefully about taking their full break and create a paper trail record of employees answers, weakening an employee's ability to fraudulently claim violations of labor law against their employer.
Conclusion
That's about all there is to it. In the near future there will be reports and notifications alerting employers to losses due to employees not taking their mandated breaks, allowing employers to correct such behavior if necessary.
If there's any struggles in the setup, please reach out to support so we can help ensure you are compliant with US labor law.