Michael Kraft
Last month, Debi Callahan and I presented a workshop on California’s new mandatory sick leave law. (We’ve made several references to this significant change. If you’re not up to date, please see our previous blog post here.  At one point, we mentioned that information about this law needed to be on the required Wage Theft Notice.
Then there were a disconcerting number of blank faces staring back at us.
As a relevant aside, Human Resource Management is composed of a disconcerting combination of strategically important considerations relating to the management of talent within your organization, and a maddening array of also-really-important-legal-requirements-that-can-get-you-into-trouble. The Wage Theft Notice is one of the latter. The California Wage Theft Protection Act flew in, kind of under the radar, in 2011/2012. The act requires that all employers provide each employee with a written notice containing specified information at the time of hire.
You need to be giving one of these to each of your new hires. Then, when a key change like the mandatory sick time issue comes up, you need to issue an updated notice to each of your employees. If you’ve never handed out a Wage Theft Notice in your life, use the current regulatory change as your trigger to do so to all of your employees.
If you want to read up on this, the best source is the California Department of Industrial Relations website: http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/governor_signs_wage_theft_protection_act_of_2011.html. The English version of the notice itself is here: http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/LC_2810.5_Notice.pdf
If you feel the need for a review of your HR practices to see what else you might be missing, call me at 445-9641 or email kraft@sequoiapersonnel.com. Debi or any of our other outstanding HR consultants would be happy to help you.

The information provided in this blog is intended for general information purposes only. Readers should seek the help of an HR professional for guidance on specific issues.