Yesterday, we looked at 3 New Year’s HR tips from James J. McDonald, Jr., managing partner of the Irvine office of Fisher & Phillips, LLP (www.laborlawyers.com). Today, 3 more tips from McDonald, and an invitation to a can’t-miss webinar on California recordkeeping.
4. Revise Your Vacation Policy
You can save money in two ways by revising your vacation policy. First, you can impose a waiting period of three or six months before new employees qualify for vacation benefits. This eliminates the need to pay accrued vacation to short-term employees who do not work out. Second, if you have a “paid time off” or “PTO” policy, split it into vacation and sick leave. This is because while you must pay accrued vacation to terminating employees, you need not pay unused sick leave unless you combine it with vacation time into “PTO.”
The new year is a perfect time to get your recordkeeping in order. Join us for an in-depth webinar, exclusively for California employers, next Wednesday the 19th.
5. Eliminate Some Paid Holidays
Some employers have paid holidays such as Presidents’ Day, Martin Luther King Day, Christmas Eve and the employee’s birthday as paid holidays. Employers are not required by law to provide paid holidays, so you can cut back on some of these paid holidays to improve productivity.
What to keep? What to toss? What to shred? Get up to speed on your recordkeeping requirements with our comprehensive webinar—learn more.
6. Review Your Health Plan
Take a look at your employee health plan. Are employees bearing their fair share of the costs of the plan, in terms of premiums and deductible amounts? Is the plan providing adequate coverage, given the cost—or would another plan provide better coverage for the same or lower cost? Consider providing a stipend to employees who may decline coverage under your plan because they can be covered under a spouse’s plan.
What’s the true test of how good your recordkeeping practices are? Generally, it’s when you’re under the microscope with a government agency for some employment practice that allegedly violates state or federal law, or when you’re embroiled in an employee lawsuit.
Unfortunately, by then it’s generally much too late to remedy any problems with the records you’ve kept or — even worse — erroneously destroyed.
Don’t wait for a governmental inquiry or a lawsuit to gauge whether your recordkeeping practices are in check with recent updates to the law, or to find out that you got rid of a crucial personnel record before its time.
Join us next Wednesday, January 19, for an in-depth, 90-minute webinar: HR Recordkeeping in California: Updates on Employee File-Management Requirements and the Golden Rules on Creation, Retention, and Destruction.
Our expert — a seasoned California-based employment attorney — will explain the records you must keep, and for how long; recent legal developments that affect recordkeeping requirements; and the “golden rules” to live by when creating, retaining, and destroying your organization’s records.
You and your colleagues will learn:
- The documents you must keep and for how long under state and federal law
- I-9 Form updates you need to know about
- How the recently enacted Fair Pay Act and IRS-related developments concerning
- W-2 reporting of health insurance benefits impact payroll-record handling
- Best practices for ensuring that you’re properly handling medical information — so you don’t violate the ADA/FEHA, FMLA/CFRA, or HIPAA
- How long you should keep EEOC or DFEH charges and related documentation
- What records you must provide in response to requests by employees, or their attorney
- Your obligations to hand over wage records when an investigator from the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division or the DLSE asks for them
- Key questions to ask before tossing those originals
- The documents you should always retain in hard copy form and tips for going paperless for the rest
- How often you should review files to ensure that the information contained is accurate
- Best practices for training supervisors on proper documentation practices for performance- or leave-related issues
Click here to learn more, or reserve your spot now. Can’t make it next Wednesday? Order the CD and learn at your leisure.