Jan. 1 is the effective date for new employment law in many states. Here’s a widely used tool to help you keep up with the changes.
As of this week, if you allowed smoking in your company’s lobby or stairwells, you can’t anymore, if you operate in California.
As of this week, if you operate in Michigan and your company health insurer or HMO didn’t offer wellness coverage, it now can, with an appropriate reduction in premiums, deductibles, and co-pays.
And as of this week, the minimum wage has increased in a number of states, including California ($7.50), Ohio ($6.85), Colorado ($6.85), Missouri ($6.50), Montana ($6.15), Vermont ($7.53), and Washington State ($7.93). Several states also call for new minimum wage posters in your workplace.
These are some of the changes in state law that went into effect as of Jan. 1, 2007, one of the traditional dates that states make new laws effective. Other key dates for this practice are July 1 and October 1.
Of course, unless you are an absolute research superstar, you might not know about these changes. Unlike the federal government, which conveniently puts all new laws and regulations into one publication, the Federal Register, states use a variety of sometimes obscure journals to alert their citizens that the law has changed. These are not widely available, yet officials still expect you to know and to comply with the changes and will penalize you if you don’t. Ignorance of the law, as usual, is no excuse.
Fortunately, tools are available to keep up with state law changes. One of the most used is the famous “Red Book” series from BLR, officially named What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State]. There are separate versions available for virtually every state, plus the District of Columbia, and you receive the exact version for your state.
The program has been keeping employers apprised of state law and its differences from the federal for more than 2 decades and is used by more than 20,000 companies. Here are some of the reasons they tell us they like it:
–Presents and Compares Both Federal and State Law on 200 Employment Topics. (Click on Table of Contents below to see the full list.) For each topic, there’s first a plain-English explanation of what you need to do for federal compliance. Then, right after the federal, there’s an explanation of what your state requires. This convenient side-by-side format makes differences immediately clear, and which law you need to follow (it’s the one most favorable to the employee) instantly understood.
–Topics Alphabetically Arranged. Pick today’s HR challenge, from “Affirmative Action” and “Attendance” to “Wage and Hour” or “Workers’ Compensation,” and it’s easily found. If you can use a dictionary, you can quickly locate the information you need in What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State].
–Updated at No Extra Cost. Here’s the feature that saves so much time researching state law changes. Program subscribers get six updates a year, sent in convenient replacement pages that plug right in. And each month you get two newsletters; one national, one for your state. There is no extra charge for any of this.
–Compensation and Benefits Reports. For those with comp and benefits responsibility, the program also supplies BLR’s respected annual comp and benefits survey reports, presenting what other companies in your state and industry are paying in salary and benefits for hundreds of jobs. Separate reports for exempt, nonexempt, and benefits, all included at no additional cost.
–Prewritten HR Policies and Forms. Great timesavers, these commonly needed policies and forms are ready to print and use.
–Low-Cost, Free Trial. The entire program costs just $1.51 a working day and can be tried free for 30 days. See the coupon below for details. The links below will also show you samples of the various key materials.
Download national section sample
Download state section sample
Download table of contents
Download newsletter sample
To try your state’s edition of What to Do About Personnel Problems FREE for 30 days, click here.