Helen Saulnier 
Seyfarth Synopsis: Each individual 12 months California enacts a host of new legislation that necessarily mean even the most diligent companies require to give their handbooks and policies a evaluation and make guaranteed they are up to date with the latest developments. Seyfarth has a several strategies for producing certain your handbook in the New Yr stays compliant all 12 months extensive (or at the very least till California complicates things yet again!).
It is late-December, so as you make your New Year’s resolutions for 2023, updating your company’s handbook to comply with new California guidelines really should be at the top rated of your listing!
Although there is no right or mistaken time to do a handbook and coverage update, we advise accomplishing them annually, as California regulation constantly modifications. Near to the start of a new calendar year is a good time to do a check-in, simply because new laws normally develop into powerful on January 1. So let us get you rockin’ into New Year’s Eve with a match plan for your updates for 2023!
As we resolved in our legislative update this earlier tumble in element, here are the new guidelines coming into impact for 2023 (unless if not observed) demanding updates to staff handbooks:
Modifications to CFRA, Depart, and Ill Guidelines to Incorporate A “Designated Person”
The California Household Legal rights Act (“CFRA”) and the California Compensated Unwell Depart Regulation (“PSL”) will now address a “designated person” for whom an staff may acquire go away, in addition to the relatives members protected inside of their scope beneath AB 1041.
As we blogged about in depth beforehand, a designated individual less than the CFRA is defined as any individual associated by blood or whose association with the personnel is the equivalent of a family members connection, and includes domestic partners. The definition of a specified man or woman underneath the new PSL provisions is diverse and broader—it can be any man or woman discovered by the employee. An worker can establish their selected individual at the time they ask for depart or request to use PSL.
Under both equally the CFRA and PSL revisions, an employer may well limit an employee to naming just one specified person for each 12-thirty day period period of time. And, under the CFRA, an employer might have to have the staff substitute any of the employee’s accrued vacation go away or other accrued time off all through a depart period, or any other paid or unpaid time off negotiated with the employer.
Businesses must make positive their depart insurance policies, ill time procedures, associated leave request varieties, and handbooks are updated accordingly.
Bereavement Leave Policy Updates
Commencing in 2023, the CFRA needs an employer to let personnel to choose up to 5 days of bereavement go away upon the death of a family member, supplied the personnel has at least 30 days of active support. Spouse and children member is outlined as spouse, baby, mother or father, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic husband or wife, or dad or mum-in-law—more narrowly than the definitions applied for CFRA go away normally or PSL, as observed higher than.
The days of bereavement go away do not be taken consecutively, but an employer can have to have that the leave be concluded within a few months of the demise of the loved ones member. If the employer does not have a compensated bereavement coverage, the depart could be unpaid, except that an personnel will have to be allowed to use getaway, own depart, accrued and offered sick go away, or compensatory time off that is in any other case accessible to the staff. The regulation does not have any limit on how many periods it may be utilized in a person 12 months, in the occasion the employee has various coated spouse and children customers go absent.
The law permits the employer to require documentation of the loss of life of the family member, which can be a demise certificate or a posted obituary (among the other broad types of verification), and prohibits retaliation for requesting bereavement leave.
Employers need to revise their bereavement depart insurance policies (if they have prepared procedures) and handbooks to comply with these variations, particularly to ensure they are providing at minimum the bare minimum quantity of essential times.
Variations to Attendance and Mobile Gadget Use Procedures Wherever There Are Crisis Circumstances
Under SB 1044, in the function of an crisis problem, employers could not acquire or threaten adverse action against an employee for refusing to report or leaving a office mainly because they come to feel unsafe. In addition, an staff may not be prevented from applying their mobile devices for unexpected emergency functions.
It is vital to be aware that a overall health pandemic is not viewed as an “emergency issue,” underneath this new law. It does include: (1) conditions of catastrophe or severe peril to the protection of persons or assets at the place of work brought on by all-natural forces or a prison act, or (2) an purchase to evacuate a workplace, a worker’s property, or the school of a worker’s boy or girl because of to organic disaster or a prison act. The regulation was designed primarily to allow for for employee protections related to wildfires and faculty shootings, however it is drafted considerably much more broadly than that.
This law requires employees, wherever possible, to notify the employer of the unexpected emergency issue. The regulation does not implement to initially responders, catastrophe support staff, personnel on armed forces bases, and workforce of household care facilities, among the other individuals.
The prohibition on using or threatening adverse motion in opposition to an personnel for refusing to report to or go away a workplace for the reason that they truly feel unsafe may possibly have to have businesses to update their attendance procedures, potentially producing modifications associated to willpower for staff who call out or depart a shift early. Also, the prohibition on avoiding an worker from accessing their cellular product for unexpected emergency uses could need employers to revise their mobile gadget policy, significantly in certain industries that could avoid workforce from accessing cellular equipment at all times during an ongoing change.
Reproductive Overall health Now Ought to Be Integrated In Anti-Discrimination Guidelines
The Contraceptive Fairness Act of 2022 amends the Reasonable Employment & Housing Act (“FEHA”) to incorporate reproductive health decisionmaking as a safeguarded class, building it unlawful to harass, discriminate, or retaliate in opposition to individuals on that foundation. Reproductive health and fitness decisionmaking, consists of, but is not constrained to, an individual’s selection to use or access a individual drug, system, solution, or health-related support for reproductive health and fitness. The law exclusively phone calls out use of birth management, contraceptives, and voluntary sterilization products and services as needing to be safeguarded choices.
Businesses need to assessment their handbooks and guidelines, and update their anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, and anti-retaliation prevention procedures to reflect the new safeguarded class “reproductive overall health decisionmaking” underneath the FEHA. Employers should really also contemplate updating schooling components in 2023 to mirror the new secured course and consist of interactive illustrations, as they presently do with other safeguarded categories.
Bare minimum Wage Maximize Suggests Double Examine Personnel Wages and Exempt Personnel Standing
The California minimum amount wage will boost to $15.50 per hour for all businesses in the new calendar year.
This raise in the minimal wage has an effect on usually means you may well have non-exempt employees that require raises, and it may possibly make upstream influences that your firm will want to take into account giving raises to lessen stage administrators as perfectly.
Also significant for employers, with the increase in bare minimum wage, the minimal yearly wage need for time beyond regulation exempt personnel also goes up. California law necessitates that staff members subject to the administrative, skilled, or executive exemptions receive a salary that is at the very least two occasions the state minimal wage. For the reason that of the enhance to the point out bare minimum wage, productive January 1, 2023, the minimal yearly salary for staff below these exemptions will also increase to $64,480.
Observe that decide on California towns in the greater Bay Location, Silicon Valley, San Diego, West Hollywood, and other folks will raise the minimal wage for non-exempt workforce performing within just town limits. Non-exempt staff working within a person of these metropolitan areas have to be compensated the neighborhood bare minimum wage when greater than the California point out minimal wage.
Employers should really look at to make sure that they have up-to-day minimal wage posters in their breakrooms, and need to verify with payroll to make positive that all staff are earning the suitable minimum amount wage in the new yr, and that exempt workers are producing at the very least the statutory minimum.
Really don’t Overlook About San Francisco’s General public Well being Emergency Depart Ordinance
This yr, San Francisco voters passed Proposition G, a new Community Health Emergency Leave Ordinance (PHELO), which became operative on Oct 1, 2022. As we previously blogged about in depth, San Francisco companies with 100 or far more workers globally, will have to offer up to 80 hrs of paid Community Overall health Crisis Leave to each and every employee who performs work in San Francisco. This is in addition to any paid time off, like compensated unwell leave under the San Francisco Compensated Ill Go away Ordinance.
Any lined San Francisco businesses who have not previously current their leave insurance policies, really should revise appropriately to comply with this Ordinance.
…And the West Hollywood Paid Time Off Ordinance
As reviewed a lot more in depth in our prior blog site, on November 15, 2021, West Hollywood enacted an ordinance requiring employers to allow for accrual of up to 96 paid hours per calendar year for ill depart, vacation, or own requirement to entire-time staff, and instituting a variety of other prerequisites. On Could 16, 2022, West Hollywood amended the Ordinance, and recently unveiled polices and administrative materials, these as demanded posters with regards to the new minimum wage and the time off elements.
West Hollywood employers who have not now up to date their guidelines accordingly, get be aware!
Place of work Remedies
Just due to the fact New Year’s is famous for dropping a huge ball doesn’t necessarily mean your business has to! Ahead of you start singing “Auld Lang Syne,” achieve out to Seyfarth’s Handbooks and Coverage Enhancement Team to begin your new calendar year off ideal and be certain your handbook and guidelines are in compliance with California law.
Edited by Coby Turner
