Employment Law Compliance Made Simple
About
It has never been more daunting to assure your business conforms to rapidly changing state and federal employment laws and regulations.
Many states enacted unique and continuously changing wage and other employment laws. Some states rely only on the federal employment law. The rest of the states follow a hybrid of state and federal employment laws. As a prime example, California employees, on average, file 10-15 wrongful termination lawsuits and 5-7 wage and hour class actions daily in state and federal courts. Pre-trial attorney fees and costs exceed $100,000. If pursued, the average trial verdict surpasses $500,000. EPLI deductibles do not ease the financial burden.
eSponte believes there is a better way to mitigate the exposure. Over the last two years, we interviewed small- to medium-sized employers to get insight in their awareness of employment law compliance. A typical response during our interviews was, “I didn’t know that.” Six months ago, we returned to the same companies and asked them to test our online solution. The results were impressive with responses such as, “Now, I know what is needed.”
eSponte’s Employment Law Compliance System can lower the risk of costly litigation. When you use the system, we expect your response will be, “I wish I had this solution long ago.”
Team
Our knowledge and strength lie in a fusion of legal professionals and information system technologists. For example, one of the founders is a nationally recognized lawyer whose practice focuses on class action and single plaintiff employment litigation. Other members of the team are seasoned information technology professionals with in-depth business-to-business expertise.
eSponte’s Employment Law Compliance System incorporates a
pre-emptive core competency strategy in a scalable and flexible
system to meet the changing expectations of the wage and
employment law market.
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Continuously updates changes in case law, legislation, agency
regulations, and enforcement. -
Collects compliance information from employees, HR, and payroll.
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Focuses HR and payroll on areas most likely to lead to high-risk
litigation. -
Mitigates leaving critical compliance steps to chance.
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Alerts HR of violations.
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Provides tools to meet compliance.
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Verifies responses from employees, supervisors, HR, and payroll.
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Ensures confidentiality of employee responses.
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Includes compliance reporting and analytics.
The solution’s features are robust.
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The system is cloud-based, uses standard browser applications eliminating the need for PEO and client software installations, and is compatible with existing Human Resource Information Systems.
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Automatic notification of new state laws and compliance alerts.
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A self-auditing function that provides a series of global questions to identify compliance issues based on individual state employment laws.
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Compliance monitoring to summarize actionable compliance issues requiring immediate attention.
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A robust survey builder feature to design individual or group queries regarding awareness or compliance with particular employment laws.
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Incomplete survey status and compliance alert reporting.
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An executive dashboard to summarize client compliance status.
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Access to a searchable database of state employment laws.
The system focuses on ten critical areas of payroll and employment
risks: Payments for hours worked, Meal periods, Rest periods,
Wage statements, Expense reimbursement, Record keeping,
New hire documentation, Discrimination/harassment, Termination,
and Human resources documentation.
Solution
California Employers with Less Than 50 Employees Now Required to Provide Employees With 12 Weeks of Parental Leave
Effective January 1, 2018, California employers with 20 to 49 employees will be required to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees to care for a newborn child or the adoption or placement of a child in foster care. The new law amends the California Family Rights Act (CFRA).
In order to qualify for leave, the employee must meet specific coverage requirements imposed by the new law, including (1) at least 12 months of service with the employer; (2) at least 1,250 hours of service for the employer during the previous 12-month period; and, (3) works at a worksite in which the employer employees at least 20 employees within a 75-mile radius of the employee’s worksite.
Once the employer and employee coverage meet the requirements, the employee is entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave to bond with the new child within one year of the child’s birth, adoption, or placement in foster care. The leave is in addition to up to four months of pregnancy disability leave available to employees disabled due to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, for a total of approximately seven months of time off.
If the employer does not provide the employee a guarantee of return to employment in the same or comparable position upon termination of the leave, the employer shall be deemed to have refused to provide the leave. Accordingly, employers should prepare documentation for issuance to employees confirming the statutory right to reinstatement.
During the leave, the employer must maintain health insurance at the level and under the conditions provided if the employee continued to work for the duration of the 12-week leave. If the employee fails to return from leave, under certain circumstances, the employer may recover from the employee any health insurance premiums the employer was required to pay on behalf of the employee during the leave.
During the leave, the employee is also entitled to use accrued vacation pay, paid sick leave, other accumulated paid time off, or other paid or unpaid time off negotiated with the employer.
The California Fair Employment and Housing Council are currently considering regulations to implement the new parental leave law, including the extension of existing CFRA notice and other regulatory requirements to the new parental leave law.
Log in to your account for further details.
New Law Developments
A review of a new employment law
