Workforce Bulletin

With the end of the year just around the corner, many employers may be contemplating giving year-end bonuses to their non-exempt employees. And bonuses, year-end or otherwise, can create problems for employers when it comes to calculating overtime compensation for those employees.

One mistake some employers make concerns calculating an employee’s regular rate for purposes of paying overtime premiums.  Indeed, many employers have found truth in the adage “no good deed goes unpunished” after implementing bonus policies or issuing other forms of compensation intended to ...

On September 9, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill (“AB”) 736, expanding the professional exemption under Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) under Wage Orders Nos. 4-2001 and 5-2001 to expressly include part-time or “adjunct” faculty at private, nonprofit colleges and universities in California.  The sponsors of AB 736, the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, advocated for the bill to address perceived ambiguities in the California Labor Code that had spawned litigation causing some colleges and universities to ...

Part 5 of a series featuring our video Rules of the Road: Return to Work in the Time of COVID-19.

By now, those who have been following this series know the basics. You’ve formulated (or are in the process of formulating) a “return to work” plan, which includes, among other things, implementing policies and guidelines consistent with CDC recommendations (wear masks), as well as other best practices that most of us learned, or should have learned, by the time we were potty-trained (wash your hands), if not by the time we were in elementary school (no touching).

But once businesses ...