HRIS_&_Payroll_Excellence_June_2022 by Excellence Publications by HR.com

JUNE 2022 • Vol.09 • No.06 (ISSN 2564-2030)

3 REASONS TO STOP SENDING PAYROLL DATA TO BROKERS - Steve Baker,

Chairman, Privacy Rights Institute

Remote Work Reimbursements

- Emily C. Gifford, Taylor L.

3 Compensation Software Considerations For HR Leaders

CDF Labor Law LLP

Unit4

Wendland, Mark S. Spring,

- Barkat Ali,

HR Automation: Correcting HR Information Gaps And Workflow Bottlenecks - David Winkler, Docufree

Pay Equity Reporting Requirements - Shawn D. Fabian and Katherine Oblak, Sheppard Mullin

INDEX

HRIS & Payroll Excellence JUNE 2022

Vol.09

No.06

(ISSN 2564-2030)

3 Reasons To Stop Sending Payroll Data To Brokers How can employers protect worker’s data and limit legal liabilities?

On the Cover Articles 10 Arbitration Agreements: Enforceable Waivers Of Employees’ Individual PAGA Claims Now Included The Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana ruling is one of the most important decisions for California employers this year - Jeffrey S. Horton Thomas, Partner and Steven P. Gallagher, Associate, Fox Rothschild

18 Maryland And Delaware Paid Family And Medical Leave: What To Expect? It’s time to review your existing policies to prepare for these changes - Ursula Siverling, Of Counsel, McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC

- Steve Baker,

Chairman, Privacy Rights Institute

24 Covid-19 Frontline Worker Pay Law: What Minnesota’s Employers Need To Know Learn which employees are eligible for the pay, and as an employer what are your obligations - Jenny Fuller, Associate, Fox Rothschild LLP

29 Consumer Price Index Spike: Minimum Wage Rates Set To Increase In California A rundown on cities and the change in the minimum wage rate - Nicole Kamm, Hannah Sweiss and Benjamin Z. Taylor, Associate, Fisher Phillips 36 Oregon’s Minimum Wage Increase The new applicable minimum wage rate depends upon both the location of the employer and where employees perform their work - Josh M. Goldberg, Attorney, Barran Liebman

Top Picks

INDEX

Remote Work Reimbursements

Are employers supposed to cover all work-from-home-related expenses? - Emily C. Gifford, Taylor L. Wendland, Mark S. Spring, Attorneys, CDF Labor Law LLP

3 Compensation Software Considerations For HR Leaders Choosing the right human capital management system - Barkat Ali, Global Head, Product, Compensation, Unit4

HR Automation: Correcting HR Information Gaps And Workflow Bottlenecks Streamlining HR tasks - David Winkler,

Executive Vice President, Docufree

Pay Equity Reporting Requirements Now is the time for employers to report pay equity data to the Illinois labor department - Shawn D. Fabian, Partner and Katherine Oblak, Associate, Sheppard Mullin

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HRIS & Payroll Excellence: (ISSN 2564-2030)

Protecting Your Employee’s Payroll Data

t is a company’s responsibility to protect its workers’ private data. However, what if the company itself subjects employees, and themselves, to significant risks and legal liabilities? Today, many companies rely on data brokers for employment and income verification. While there are several benefits to availing of such services, by doing so, companies are exposing their data to external risks. According to an analysis published by the Mortgage Bankers Association, the number of lawsuits linked to the Fair Credit Reporting Act has nearly quadrupled over the past decade, reaching roughly 5,000 suits in 2019.

Privacy Rights Institute Chairman Steve Baker goes in-depth into this subject, in his article titled 3 Reasons To Stop Sending Payroll Data To Brokers. This article, featured on the cover this month, also discusses what can companies do to eliminate brokers as middlemen and take a critical step to protect worker data, limit legal liability, and strengthen bonds with employees. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, released on June 15, is a lifeline for employers in California and will prove to be one of the most important decisions for California employers this year.

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For many years, employers operating in California have suffered a barrage of costly lawsuits brought under PAGA. The Viking River decision gives employers the most valuable means of protecting themselves from PAGA since the enactment of the law. Learn more about this Fox Rothschild attorneys Jeffrey S. Horton Thomas and Steven P. Gallagher’s article, titled Arbitration Agreements: Enforceable Waivers Of Employees’ Individual PAGA Claims Now Included. In Remote Work Reimbursement, CDF Labor Law attorneys discuss what are the various kind of reimbursements that employers supposed to cover when employees are working remotely. Also, read 3 Compensation Software Considerations For HR Leaders by Barkat Ali, and HR Automation: Correcting HR Information Gaps And Workflow Bottlenecks by David Winkler. That is not all! We have featured several other articles this month, and hope this edition of HRIS & Payroll Excellence will help you achieve excellence in your HRIS and payroll processes. Happy reading and don’t forget to send us your feedback! Write to the Editor at ePubEditors@hr.com

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COVER ARTICLE

3 Reasons To Stop Sending Payroll Data To Brokers How can employers protect worker’s data and limit legal liabilities? By Steve Baker, Privacy Rights Institute

t is crucial that all companies protect their workers’ private data. But by relying on data brokers for employment and income verification, your company may be subjecting them – and your company – to significant risks and liabilities. Credit agencies and other brokers market their verification services as secure ways to swiftly confirm payroll data. Yet these same brokers have notable histories of exposing and mishandling sensitive information. Looking back, it is easy to see how brokers came to dominate the market for verifying employment data. For decades, when lenders had to verify one of your employee’s salary histories for loans, mortgages, insurance, or a new job, the lenders could either contact your company’s HR department or work with brokers that collect and sell financial data. To save their HR teams from answering calls and emails, companies proactively sent their payroll data to brokers.

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Unfortunately, brokers like Equifax and Experian are responsible for some of the largest data breaches in history and have been subject to huge fines and class-action lawsuits. Regulators have also been openly critical of their operations. Earlier this year, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) stated that these brokers have “little incentive to treat consumers fairly.” Chances are your company sends payroll data to one of the major brokers or their smaller competitors. Equifax alone, through its subsidiary The Work Number, collects payroll data on more than half of the U.S. workforce. Fortunately, employers no longer must choose between sending payroll data to brokers or burdening HR teams with endless phone calls. Some platforms even empower workers to store their data in secure vaults, review that data for accuracy, and share it with specific lenders and employers. These platforms even

JUNE 2022

ensure the data is authentic and tamper-free. With these technologies, companies can eliminate brokers as middlemen and take a critical step to protect worker data, limit legal liability, and strengthen bonds with employees.

1. Improve Data Privacy and Security Errors and data breaches are all too common for brokers that gather information from countless sources. In 2011, for instance, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion agreed to a $45 million settlement after they were charged with sharing flawed data. And in the case of employment data, workers usually do not learn of these errors until after they have been rejected for a mortgage or a job. For those workers who do find data errors, it can also be difficult to correct them. According to the CFPB, the three major brokers gave helpful responses to less than 2% of customer complaints in 2021.

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3 Reasons To Stop Sending Payroll Data To Brokers

is just one example out of thousands. According to analysis published by the Mortgage Bankers Association, the number of lawsuits linked to the Fair Credit Reporting Act has nearly quadrupled over the past decade, reaching roughly 5,000 suits in 2019.

Beyond data errors, brokers also have difficulty keeping data secure. In 2015, a breach at Experian exposed 15 million Social Security numbers, among other data. And following the 2017 breach at Equifax, when hackers seized personal data on 150 million people, Equifax reached a $575 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In its findings, the FTC cited “the company’s failure to take reasonable steps to secure its network.” HR leaders are beginning to ask themselves if, for the sake of their company’s security and their employees’ privacy, it is time to find a better method to verify employment data.

2. Reduce Corporate Liability Employers also face incredible liability when they use employment data that has not been verified by the workers themselves. In 2019, Starbucks settled lawsuits that alleged the company denied employment to 8,000 potential workers based on flawed data in their background checks. And this

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3. Strengthen Ties Between Employers and Employees Most workers do not know their companies send or sell their data to brokers. So, it makes sense they would have serious concerns when they learn their employers hand their salary data to brokers that regulators assert have “little incentive to treat consumers fairly.” This February, Google employees went to the Washington Post when they learned Google sends their payroll data to Equifax. That same month, Apple made national headlines when it was revealed the company labelled former employees as “associates” in their records, regardless of their title. Since the employees were not involved in verifying these records, some were shocked to find incorrect data that had ruined their attempts to secure new jobs. The relationship between employer and employee should be one of trust and respect. However, the current employment and income verification system does not serve those goals. To giant data brokers, workers are not their partners or even their consumers.

JUNE 2022

They are brokers’ product – a commodity to be packaged and sold over and over again. Ultimately, sending payroll data to brokers is a risk to employee privacy, a liability for employers, and a threat to corporate culture and cohesion. And there are better ways to manage payroll data. So, before your company has to worry about data breaches, legal risks, and public scandals, you have a chance to re-think your verification system. And remember, workers cannot fire data brokers or force their bosses to withhold their data. Only employers can green light a better approach – and show the type of leadership that leads workers to trust their HR teams with their data and their futures in the first place.

Steve Baker is the Chairman of the Board of the Privacy Rights Institute. He served as senior leader at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for more than 27 years, most recently as the Midwest Region Director. He is a recipient of the FTC Chairman’s Award – the agency’s highest honor.

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Arbitration Agreements: Enforceable Waivers Of Employees’ Individual PAGA Claims Now Included The Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana ruling is one of the most important decisions for California employers this year By Jeffrey S. Horton Thomas and Steven P. Gallagher, Fox Rothschild

n a much-needed win for employers, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that waivers of employees’ individual claims under California’s Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) are enforceable. The court’s decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, released on June 15, is a lifeline for employers in California and will prove to be one of the most important decisions for California employers this year. For many years, employers operating in California have suffered a barrage of costly lawsuits brought under PAGA. The Viking River decision gives employers the most valuable means of protecting themselves from PAGA since the enactment of the law.

to sue their employer for civil penalties arising from the employer’s alleged violations of the California Labor Code. PAGA plaintiffs typically claim that their employer failed to pay for off-the-clock work, underpaid overtime, did not provide meal periods or permit rest breaks, failed to pay final wages when due, etc. As long as the plaintiff alleges they suffered at least one violation in one pay period, they may bring a PAGA action for penalties arising from Labor Code violations suffered by not only the plaintiff, but all other nonexempt employees in the subject time period. Even in a modest-sized workforce, potential penalties for the alleged violations can quickly amount to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

However, to benefit from the decision, employers must update their arbitration agreements to bring them in line with the Viking River decision and take related actions explained below.

Setting the Stage

PAGA authorizes employees and former employees

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Arbitration Agreements: Enforceable Waivers Of Employees’ Individual PAGA Claims Now Included

When a PAGA plaintiff recovers money from an employer, 25% is distributed among the “aggrieved employees” identified in the case and the remaining 75% is paid to the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency. A prevailing plaintiff also may be awarded their attorney’s fees.

The Issue in Viking River For some time, to prevent PAGA lawsuits, employers have included in their arbitration agreements a waiver by the employee of the right to bring a PAGA claim. The California Supreme Court, however, ruled in 2014 in the Iskanian decision that such “PAGA waivers” are unenforceable. The California Supreme Court reasoned that, because plaintiffs, in an important respect, bring PAGA lawsuits on behalf of the State of California, they do not have the power to waive the right to bring a PAGA action. The Viking River case involved Angie Moriana, who entered into an arbitration agreement when she was hired by Viking River Cruises, Inc. The agreement included a PAGA waiver. When her employment ended, contrary to the PAGA waiver, Moriana filed a PAGA lawsuit against Viking River. In the state trial court and on appeal, Viking River sought to enforce Moriana’s PAGA waiver. Adhering to the Iskanian decision, the California trial court and Court of Appeal ruled against Viking River, finding Moriana’s PAGA waiver to be unenforceable, and ruling that Moriana’s PAGA lawsuit could move forward. The U.S. Supreme Court had long refused to consider the issue of PAGA waivers. Nevertheless, Viking River sought review by the Court, asking it to decide — once and for all — whether PAGA waivers are enforceable. In a happy surprise for employers and their counsel, on December 15, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the Viking River case for review.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling The court, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, found that a PAGA action does not consist of a single legal claim. Rather, a PAGA claim consists,

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first, of the plaintiff’s claim for penalties arising from Labor Code violations plaintiff suffered — “the Individual PAGA Claim” — and second, the claim for penalties arising from Labor Code violations suffered by all of the other “aggrieved employees” on whose behalf plaintiff brought the lawsuit — “the Non-Individual PAGA Claim.” Prior to the Viking River decision, neither California state courts nor the U.S. Supreme Court had viewed PAGA claims as consisting of two claims in this manner. By refusing to enforce the PAGA waiver contained in Viking River’s arbitration agreement — at least insofar as Moriana’s Individual PAGA claim was concerned — the California state courts had run afoul of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), Justice Alito reasoned. The U.S. Supreme Court found that the FAA mandates that Moriana be free to agree with Viking River as she wished with respect to her Individual PAGA Claim and that, to that extent, the FAA preempted the rule set out in Iskanian that PAGA waivers are unenforceable. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the rule declared by Iskanian, in effect, bars parties from dividing PAGA actions “into [their] constituent parts” and “unduly circumscribes the freedom of parties to determine ‘the issues subject to arbitration’ and ‘the rules by which they will arbitrate,’ and does so in a way that violates the fundamental principle that ‘arbitration is a matter of consent.’” Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Viking River that employees are free to agree in an arbitration agreement to submit their Individual PAGA Claim to arbitration and to waive them. The court then held that once the plaintiff’s Individual PAGA Claim is diverted to arbitration, the plaintiff no longer has standing in the PAGA lawsuit pending in Superior Court, as the plaintiff is not an “aggrieved person” in the PAGA lawsuit. “When an employee’s own dispute is pared away from a PAGA action, the employee is no different from a member of the general public, and PAGA does not allow such persons to maintain suit [under PAGA].” As a consequence, Justice Alito wrote, “the correct course is to dismiss [the employee’s] remaining claims” under PAGA in the trial court.

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Arbitration Agreements: Enforceable Waivers Of Employees’ Individual PAGA Claims Now Included

In summary, the U.S. Supreme Court found in Viking River that employees are free to agree by an arbitration agreement to submit their Individual PAGA Claim to arbitration (and to waive their Individual PAGA Claim) and that upon enforcement of such a provision, the PAGA plaintiff loses standing to litigate the Non-Individual PAGA Claim in court, requiring dismissal of the court action.

● This is an opportune time to review your arbitration agreements from top to bottom and revise them in ways that may be helpful in enforcing them. Ensure they clearly and obviously comply with California law. Arbitration agreements should be standalone documents and be fair, straightforward and clear.

Viking River offers employers a valuable opportunity to protect themselves against future PAGA lawsuits. In order to take advantage of the opportunity, however, employers must act.

● Where an arbitration agreement is electronically signed, confirm that audit trails are enabled and that appropriate security measures are taken to ensure that only the assigned employee has access to sign the agreement.

Important action items include:

● Translate arbitration agreements to reflect the languages of the workforce.

Action Items for Employers

● Update your arbitration agreements to ensure they expressly comply with Viking River. ● Determine whether you will use your new arbitration agreement only with new hires going forward or you will attempt to get current employees to sign the new agreement in the place of any earlier agreement. ● Evaluate whether you will adopt a mandatory or voluntary arbitration program. Employers’ risk tolerance will vary. The jury is still out, so to speak, on the question of whether mandatory arbitration programs are lawful in California. The challenge to California Labor Code section 432.6, which seeks to make mandatory programs unlawful, is still pending.

● Do not use “browserwrap” agreements in electronic arbitration agreements. That is, the terms of the agreement should be on the electronic display in the agreement, as opposed to making any terms accessible only through a hyperlink.

Key Takeaways There is no time more important than the present to review and update arbitration agreements for use with California employees. Arbitration agreements should be revised to take advantage of the Viking River decision. Keep in mind that California law concerning arbitration agreements has become intricate and that Viking River leaves open questions. Whenever you revise your arbitration agreement, involve counsel knowledgeable in California employment law. This article first appeared here.

Jeffrey S. Horton Thomas is Partner at Fox Rothschild.

Steven P. Gallagher is an Associate at Fox Rothschild.

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TOP PICK

Remote Work Reimbursements Are employers supposed to cover all work-from-home-related expenses? By Emily C. Gifford, Taylor L. and Wendland, Mark S. Spring, Attorneys, CDF Labor Law LLP

alifornia employers have recently experienced a material uptick in lawsuits from employees seeking reimbursement for expenses incurred while working from home. These lawsuits seek a wide variety of expense reimbursement for increased utility costs and for the costs of losing out on the ability to rent out their home offices. Employees typically bring these claims under Labor Code section 2802. Sometimes employees also bring derivative PAGA actions for wage-statement “inaccuracies.”

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Labor Code section 2802 requires employers to reimburse employees for “all necessary expenditures or losses” incurred by the employee in the discharge of their duties or under “obedience to the directions of the employer.” Importantly, Labor Code section 2802 clarifies that “necessary expenditures or losses” include all “reasonable costs, including but not limited to attorney’s fees incurred by the employee enforcing the rights granted by this section.”

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Remote Work Reimbursements

Many California businesses continue to have employees work from home or are now using a hybrid structure. These employers should be aware of their reimbursement requirements under California law and review their policies and telecommuting agreements to ensure employees are being properly reimbursed. CDF covered remote work expenses and employer reimbursement requirements in 2020, which readers can view here.

What Defenses Are Available to Employers Sued for Work-from-home Related Expenses? This question was very recently considered by the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California on June 1, 2022. In Williams v. Amazon. com Services LLC, the court denied Amazon’s Motion to Dismiss after Amazon raised two (unsuccessful) arguments: 1. Amazon’s adherence to government-issued stay-at-home orders absolves them of liability, and 2. Williams did not submit reimbursement requests to Amazon so they could not know that Williams incurred work-related expenses that required reimbursement. The court found that despite these arguments, the plaintiff had sufficiently pled his claim under Section 2802 and denied the motion to dismiss. The court also held that Amazon’s expectation for Williams to work from home after the stay-at-home orders were imposed was sufficient to establish Amazon’s liability. Thus, California employers who adhered to state and/or county mandates to shelter in place and/or work remotely are not likely to be shielded from liability for employee’s work-related expenses incurred during the mandated time period, even though employers were not the “cause” of the shift to remote work. That argument did not work in the Northern District and is not likely to work elsewhere. The court’s analysis of Amazon’s second argument provides guidance on how to determine an employer’s “reasonable” expectations. The court considered both Amazon’s status as a tech company and Williams’ position as a senior software

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development engineer (which entailed duties, such as writing design documents for software systems and being on-call for production system) to determine that Williams’ duties “plausibly requires the use of physical space, internet, and electricity.” Therefore, “Amazon, a major tech company, surely knew or at the very least had reason to know” that its software engineers incurred “basic costs” related to their work while they worked from home and actual notice of the costs was not required.

How to Determine Basic Costs

Across a number of cases, employees’ most common “basic costs” include reliable access to the Internet, a phone, and a computer. Importantly, prior to the pandemic, courts have held that employers need only reimburse a “reasonable percentage” of an employee’s use of a personal phone or Internet costs. Beyond that, the “physical space” requirement as referenced in Williams v. Amazon is more difficult to define. Some of the newly filed lawsuits are now demanding payment for the potential revenue employees could have collected had they rented out their home office instead of using it for work. In these cases, employees claim that they lost out on potential revenue of renting out the rooms they used as offices, even where there is no actual rental agreement or even a prospective tenant. There is no published authority supporting an award of such expenses in California, and we believe it is unlikely that a court would find that such theoretical expenses are compensable. In other cases, employees have claimed that they were required to purchase office furniture and equipment to work remotely. In these lawsuits, the employee is likely to be successful if the employee can show that the furniture/equipment was necessary as a direct consequence of the employee’s duties. The date of purchase of the furniture/ equipment may be relevant because if the employee purchased the furniture before being approved to work from home, the employer has a strong argument that the furniture/equipment purchase was not a “necessary expenditure or loss incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties.” Labor Code Section 2802.

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Remote Work Reimbursements

Prior to the pandemic, some employers, particularly tech-based startups, offered on-site perks, such as free meals and dry-cleaning. Some disgruntled employees have since complained about the cost of preparing or purchasing their own meals while working remotely and are now seeking reimbursement for these costs as well. By their nature, perks are not necessary for employees to discharge their duties, so we believe it may be difficult for employees to successfully recover these costs, but in California, one never knows what the courts will do.

The Takeaway

Based on current trends, California employers can expect to be on the hook for at least the “basic costs” of Internet usage, personal cell phone and laptop usage, and some utilities for workers that the employer requires or encourages to work remotely. However, plaintiff attorneys are now testing the bar

Mark S. Spring is Office Managing Partner & Chair of CDF’s Traditional Labor Law Practice Group. Mark S. Spring has over thirty years of experience handling labor and employment law matters throughout Northern California. Spring’s practice is focused on the representation of management in union-management relations and handling litigation triggered by all types of employment-related disputes.

by seeking reimbursement for furniture, the value of potential rent, and other less traditional expenses. It remains to be seen how broadly the California courts will interpret the law in this area. To protect against liability (and attorneys’ fees), California employers should explicitly define each employee’s job duties and use these definitions to determine “reasonable” expectations of the costs of remote work. In addition, California employers should always meet with any employees, who they are allowing/requiring to work from home before the work from home arrangement is commenced. Expectations should be outlined with particularity and expenses should be explored and agreed to. A remote work agreement outlining the expectations (including expenses) would be ideal and may help act as a shield in these types of lawsuits and claims. This article first appeared here.

Taylor L. Wendland is an Attorney at CDF. Taylor has experience drafting motions, discovery, research memorandums and briefs. Wendland has worked on cases involving COVID-19 compliance, class actions, retaliation, harassment, wage and hour, trade secrets, and wrongful termination.

Emily C. Gifford is an Attorney at CDF. Emily provides litigation and advisory services to California businesses and non-profit organizations in all aspects of labor and employment law. Her employment litigation experience involves claims of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, unfair competition, breach of contract, and wage and hour issues.

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Maryland And Delaware Paid Family And Medical Leave: What To Expect? It’s time to review your existing policies to prepare for these changes By Ursula Siverling, McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC

aryland and Delaware recently joined the growing list of states that have enacted legislation requiring employers to offer paid family and medical leave. Both states are still working on implementing regulations for the new laws; but, in the meantime, below is a brief summary of what you need to know about these laws and when they will take effect.

Maryland Maryland’s new law will cover all employers with at least one employee in the state. To be eligible for the leave, employees must have worked at least 680 hours over the 12-month period before the leave begins. Employees also must exhaust all voluntarily provided paid leave before taking paid leave under this law. Beginning on January 1, 2025, all eligible employees may take up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave in an application year for the following reasons: ● To care for a child in the first year following a birth, adoption, or foster care placement; ● For an employee’s own serious health condition;

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● To care for a family member with a serious health condition; ● To care for a service member with a serious health condition who is the employee’s next of kin; or ● For a qualifying exigency relating to a family member on active duty. Employees may also be eligible for an additional 12 weeks per year for their own serious health condition if the initial 12 weeks of leave were taken to care for a new child, and vice versa. The paid leave will be funded by employee wage deductions and, for employers with 15 or more employees, employer contributions or the establishment of self-funded private employer plans to provide paid leave. The benefit amount will be determined by the state average weekly wage and the employee’s current rate of pay, with the maximum benefit for 2025 being $1,000 per week and the minimum amount being $50 per week. The amount of the benefit will be adjusted annually based on the consumer price index.

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Maryland And Delaware Paid Family And Medical Leave: What To Expect?

Delaware Delaware’s new law creates a statewide insurance program for paid parental, family caregiving, and medical leave funded through employer and employee contributions. Employers with at least 25 employees in Delaware during the prior 12-month period must provide eligible employees with a maximum of 12 weeks of job-protected leave. Employers with 10 to 24 employees only need to offer parental leave. Employer contributions begin on January 1, 2025, and eligible employees will be permitted to take leave beginning on January 1, 2026. Similar to the federal FMLA, employees are eligible for this leave if they have worked 1,250 hours during the previous 12-month period and have worked for a covered employer for at least one year. Eligible employees will be able to take leave for the following reasons: ● To address their own serious health condition;

year for parental reasons and 6 weeks in a two-year period for their own health condition, to care for a family member, or for a family member’s military deployment. Employers may require employees to use accrued paid time off to substitute for paid leave. Eligible employees will receive 80% of their average weekly wage, with a minimum weekly benefit of $100 and a maximum weekly benefit of $900 for 2026 and 2027. For each year thereafter, the state will adjust the contribution rate based on the consumer price index. The benefits are funded by employer contributions, but employers may deduct up to 50% of the premiums from employees’ wages. Employers have some time to prepare for these new requirements, and now is a good time to start reviewing your existing policies to prepare for these changes. This article originally appeared here.

● To care for a family member with a serious health condition; ● To bond and care for a child during the first year following birth, adoption, or foster placement; or ● To address a family member’s military deployment.

Ursula Siverling is Of Counsel at McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC.

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3 Compensation Software Considerations For HR Leaders Choosing the right human capital management system By Barkat Ali, Unit4

usinesses in the mid-market segment generally have a workforce of between 100 and 1,000 employees. They represent around 200,000 companies in the U.S. and more than 3 times worldwide. Despite the robust underpinnings enjoyed by many of these enterprises, this group has historically been marketed various degrees of scaled-down HCM software solutions. This is a result of some commonly held perspectives about mid-market organizations, including having major budgetary constraints that force a “good enough” automation strategy versus something more transformational and lacking in-house IT resources to support a product deployment or periodic upgrades. As a result, human capital management (HCM) software vendors must either pre-configure various product usage rules (which can reduce flexibility to align with business needs) or simplify the configurability of the toolsets delivered, as the more

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sophisticated ones are usually not designed for admin users. An argument can easily be made that one of the main HCM functionality areas where this dynamic has impeded business value for customers is compensation management. This is because pay - and more broadly speaking total rewards - practices are universally recognized as one of the most important drivers behind why talent joins and then stays at a company, remaining engaged and productive. The notion of scaled down functionality and sophistication, as it relates to a compensation management solution, often means a lack of flexibility without manual workarounds, the need for supplemental tools, such as spreadsheets, and requests being made to the IT department or vendor for situational support. This naturally leads to a higher total cost, since more resources will be needed to run the compensation process

JUNE 2022

end-to-end. It can also result in payout errors which are costly – and can affect the employer’s reputation. Here are the top three considerations for HR leaders looking to implement a compensation software solution.

1. System Architecture Take the case of an organization trying to retain its competitiveness in the labor market by offering a new compensation plan to employees, but the plan’s eligibility or calculation rules are not so straightforward. If a customer’s compensation team is unable to define and configure what data is needed, this can result in compromising the plan’s intended outcomes. It can also take longer to operationalize these requirements or have total confidence in how the system functions. And let us keep in mind that “intended outcomes” can comprise a wide range of business benefits.

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3 Compensation Software Considerations For HR Leaders

“try before you buy” opportunities supported by the vendor, are a great way to gauge the depth and breadth of their understanding.

3. Pricing Transparency and Clarity

Conversely, if that new compensation plan can be quickly and thoroughly defined in the system without the IT department, outside consulting, or vendor support, or similarly be able to update an existing plan with new parameters, then a mid-market company can potentially avail itself of other sophisticated capabilities the software offers, as well. These capabilities might be related to leveraging compensation analytics, doing what-if planning and modeling, or importing compensation market data to better guide pay decisions. The reason why these capabilities that are usually associated with compensation products can be enjoyed by more organizations is because there are more products available today that reflect the most modern practices in enterprise software development, including isolating the three main software design components: business logic, the user experience (UX) and the underlying database. Without question, this makes for a product that is much easier to configure and mold or adapt to each customer’s unique business requirements that does not require heavy technical

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lifting. More often than not, we are talking about English-like statements, drag and drop interactions and straightforward guided wizards. One final point on architecture: an open API framework makes all the difference given the fact that deployments of compensation tools involve interfacing with adjacent products.

2. Value Realization The fact that cloud-based, subscription or SaaS-based software is almost always easier on the budget of mid-market organizations than legacy, on-premise software is no longer a differentiator for software vendors. What is a clear differentiator, however, is the extent to which the vendor has formalized and optimized its value realization program for customers. Value realization starts with the vendor partner having a solid, detailed understanding of the customer’s business requirements, including data and process nuances and idiosyncratic or complex use cases. System demonstrations and setup activities the vendor participates in, as well as any

JUNE 2022

Finally, as most people, who have evaluated enterprise compensation or other HCM software, know it can be challenging to fully understand pricing, not just the per employee per month (PEPM) subscription cost, but everything else that can enter the picture. For example, is there a separate charge for data storage or number of users? Or what will the vendor charge to adapt its API framework or help you import market pricing data? When extreme price transparency and clarity exist, the vendor partner is demonstrably committed to a value realization program, and the product is reflective of the most modern cloud architecture and system design, a mid-market organization and compensation department can in fact participate in all of the benefits that normally accrue to large market companies.

Barkat Ali is Global Head of Product, Compensation, at Unit4.

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Covid-19 Frontline Worker Pay Law: What Minnesota's Employers Need To Know Learn which employees are eligible for the pay, and as an employer what are your obligations By Jenny H. Fuller, Fox Rothschild LLP

What Are the Eligibility Criteria?

Below is an outline of what employers need to know about this new law, including what it requires of them.

1. Have been employed at least 120 hours in Minnesota in one or more “frontline sectors” between March 15, 2020, and June 30, 2021. 2. For at least 120 hours worked during this period:

ligible Minnesota workers can now apply through the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) for a bonus under the Covid-19 Frontline Worker Pay Law.

What Is the Covid-19 Frontline Worker Pay Law? The Minnesota Covid-19 Frontline Worker Pay Law, signed into law by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on April 29, 2022, authorizes direct payments to eligible Minnesota workers whose work put them at risk of contracting Covid-19 during the peacetime emergency. Employers are not required to fund the bonus, rather, the bonus payments will come from a state fund of $500 million that the state has set aside to split amongst approximately 667,000 Minnesota frontline workers. At this time, the state anticipates each eligible worker will receive approximately $750, although the amount of the bonuses will ultimately be determined by the number of eligible applicants, not to exceed $1,500 per applicant.

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In order to be eligible for frontline worker pay, the worker must:

● Have not been able to telework due to the nature of their work. ● Have worked in close proximity to people outside of the worker’s household. 3. Meet income requirements for at least one of the 2020 or 2021 tax years. 4. Have not received an unemployment insurance benefit payment for more than 20 total weeks between March 15, 2020, and June 26, 2021. The state has defined “close proximity to individuals outside of the individual’s household” to mean within six feet of individuals with whom the worker does not live. In order to be eligible, a worker must not have had an option to perform work remotely or in a telework status.

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Covid-19 Frontline Worker Pay Law: What Minnesota's Employers Need To Know

To qualify for a payment, a worker’s adjusted gross income must be less than the following amounts for at least one of the 2020 or 2021 tax years: 1. For a worker who was employed in an occupation with direct Covid-19 patient care responsibilities, $350,000 for a married taxpayer filing a joint return and $175,000 for all other filers. 2. For all other workers, $185,000 for a married taxpayer filing a joint return and $85,000 for all other filers.

The state has defined the “frontline sectors” to include the following: 1. Building services, including maintenance, janitorial and security 2. Child care 3. Courts and corrections 4. Emergency responders 5. Food service, including production, processing, preparation, sale and delivery 6. Ground and air transportation services 7. Health care 8. Long-term care and home care 9. Manufacturing 10. Public health, social service and regulatory service 11. Public transit 12. Retail, including sales, fulfillment, distribution and delivery 13. Schools, including charter schools, state schools and higher education 14. Temporary shelters and hotels 15. Vocational rehabilitation

JUNE 2022

How Do Workers Apply? Workers can apply on the Minnesota Covid-19 Frontline Worker webpage. The application period is expected to be open from June 8, 2022, through Friday, July 22, 2022, although the dates may be subject to change. If an application is denied, applicants have 15 days from notice of the denial to appeal.

What Are My Obligations as an Employer?

What Are the Frontline Sectors?

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Industries not included in the definition of “frontline sectors” include the professional, scientific, and technical services industries, the information services industry, the finance and insurance industries, the utility industry, the construction industry and the arts, entertainment and recreation industries. The state recently issued a fact sheet that provides employers with further guidance on assessing whether they fall into one of the frontline sectors, including examples of specific types of employers within each sector.

By June 23, 2022, employers in the frontline sectors are required to provide notice, in a form approved by the DOLI Commissioner, advising all current workers who may be eligible for Frontline Worker Pay of the assistance potentially available to them and how to apply for the benefits. Employers are to provide the notice using the same means the employer uses to provide other work-related notices to employees. The notice must be at least as conspicuous as (1) posting a copy of the notice at each worksite where workers work and where the notice may be readily observed and reviewed by all workers working at the site; or (2) providing a paper or electronic copy of the notice to all workers. This article originally appeared here.

Jenny H. Fuller is an Associate at Fox Rothschild LLP.

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HR Automation: Correcting HR Information Gaps And Workflow Bottlenecks Streamlining HR tasks By David Winkler, Docufree

he transformational shift to remote and/or hybrid workplaces has undoubtedly created more logistical challenges for HR departments in terms of moving work from the physical world to a digital one. Well before Covid-19 started impacting the business world, HR professionals were already struggling with gathering, managing and extracting value from the sea of documents moving in and out of their departments. HR professionals were constantly challenged to secure and regulate information while making it easily accessible when it was scattered everywhere, processed separately, and managed by different people.

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Unfortunately, many HR departments are still relying on manual activities to complete all these tasks at hand. It has been reported that HR managers lose 14 or more hours a week completing tasks that could be automated.1 HR automation helps increase the productivity of HR departments by saving them from repetitive, manual tasks and enabling them to focus on higher-value activities, such as decision-making and strategy. With automation, HR professionals can easily capture, create, and update information better and also streamline various HR tasks for employees. This will help not only their HR departments, but also help the entire organization to be more productive, rules-driven, compliant and efficient.

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HR Automation: Correcting HR Information Gaps And Workflow Bottlenecks

In order for HR to make automation a reality in their departments, they must first identify the information gaps and the workflow bottlenecks that need correcting.

Huge Volumes, Variety and Sources of Information Create Chaos HR departments struggle with information management due in large part to the huge volumes of information being created and received every day. Information is coming from different sources and flowing through multiple channels in different formats.

HR Departments Still Rely on Manual, Administrative Processes Needless to say, HR is a very document-centric corporate function. However, these documents are mission-critical and they are strategic when applied to the HR function in any organization. Unfortunately, HR is still relying on poor administrative practices to manage the vast amount of information flowing into and out of their departments—even with technology in place. The most inefficient HR tasks: ● Maintaining employee files

Sources:

Channels:

● Creating and posting job descriptions

Applicants

Postal mail

● Entering candidate and employee data

Employees

Faxes

● Managing onboarding paperwork

Managers

Emails

● Tracking processes in other departments

External partners

Web forms

Auditors

Digital files

Government entities

Data imports

● Distributing employee handbooks ● Writing employee emails and making calls ● Facilitating orientation and training ● Updating employee certifications

HR Information Lives in Disconnected Siloes HR information is living in disconnected silos, from file cabinets and fax machines to inboxes and various HR systems only accessible from the office or by certain people. Additionally, many of these disparate HR systems currently lack the ability to share workforce data with each other and other core business systems. Different systems that house HR information: ● Human capital management (HCM)

Information Gaps Exist Between Apps Information challenges most often originate around forms, connecting data and/or documents across systems, getting signatures, having a single source of truth, and storage that better supports regulatory requirements. The list can go on forever. Here are three key information gaps that exist in the majority of HRIS systems. 1. Applicant-tracking system data gaps

● Recruiting

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) have modernized and accelerated the hiring process, but the employee experience many times stops after recruitment. HR departments often struggle to integrate new-hire records from an ATS with other applications and provide easy access to the right people for seamless employee onboarding, provisioning, and compliant records management. Transferring information from one system to another can be complicated. Typically, documents are either manually entered into each

● Onboarding ● Talent management ● HR management ● Benefits administration ● Performance management ● Time and attendance ● Payroll ● Tax credits

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● Creating payroll status-change notifications

JUNE 2022

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HR Automation: Correcting HR Information Gaps And Workflow Bottlenecks

system, taking up time and increasing the risk of human error, or they are printed out and placed in a file folder. In both scenarios, information becomes more difficult to effectively manage and protect, quickly access, or use in the applications an HR team relies on every day. 2. Employee-form gaps When it comes to employee forms, which make up the onboarding process, many HRIS systems do not support the ingestion of forms from third-party onboarding applications. Many also do not support the creation of fillable online forms. Those that do, only have the ability to create forms after the applicant has been onboarded and is an employee— with little to no support for associated workflows. This type of process, most assuredly, perpetuates new hires having to fill out paperwork manually with HR staff then scanning and manually uploading forms into the systems that need them. That is just for new hires. Forms and processes for existing employees also present issues. Anytime a change is made to an existing employee’s position, salary, title, classification, termination, etc., an employee-status change form needs to be completed. Again, more than likely, these tasks are conducted by hand with the necessary information being manually uploaded to the proper systems. 3. Storage, compliance and access gaps

There is also no bulk method for uploading physical documents, so HR staff would have to scan hard-copy files, find a way to categorize and subcategorize them, and then, in some cases, upload them one by one into the right location. Additionally, robust workflow or e-signature capabilities are often lacking, creating routing, approval and completion issues around important, time-sensitive documents.

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According to a KPMG study, most HR functions could be improved by automation. The study indicated that only five out of 21 HR functions could not be improved by automation.2 Pre-pandemic, it was reported that almost half of companies (45 percent) were still in the early, basic stages of automation.3 Fast forward to a business world several years later on the cusp of an endemic, and we find an accelerated interest in and use of automation. HR professionals are a company’s record keepers. They collect, store, and maintain mountains of information. Everything, from personnel files to organizational policies, crosses their desks and fills their filing cabinets. This responsibility is challenging in any environment, but it is increasingly cumbersome as companies strive to become more data-driven, agile, and secure. When immediacy and accessibility are the status quo, manila folders full of paper records are an outdated, inefficient, and ineffective record-keeping workflow. HR departments should take a deep breath, to some degree, and start looking at what the process is along with the problem they are trying to solve. It might be a combination of changes that are needed in terms of rectifying their information gaps and workflow bottlenecks. Sources:

Some HRIS systems do use a document-cloud service as their back-end repository. However, there are several limited capabilities of this approach that cause manual issues. For one, there is often no tool for processing large volumes of existing HR documents to get them into the proper categories and subcategories in order to upload them to the right location within the cloud.

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HR Automation Technologies Abound

CareerBuilder, Press Release, “More Than Half of HR Managers Say

AI Will Become a Regular Part of HR in the Next Five Years” May 18, 2017. 2.

KPMG International, “Rise of the Humans: Digital and Human Labor

and Its Impact on the Global Workforce,” 2018. 3.

Bersin, Josh, “HR Technology for 2018: Ten Disruptions Ahead,”

Forbes, Nov. 2, 2017.

David Winkler is Executive Vice President at Docufree.

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Consumer Price Index Spike: Minimum Wage Rates Set To Increase In California A rundown on cities and the change in the minimum wage rate By Nicole Kamm, Hannah Sweiss and Benjamin Z. Taylor, Fisher Phillips

ith the Consumer Price Index recently showing the largest spike in 30 years, California employers need to brace themselves and prepare for the minimum-wage hikes going into effect in several

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JUNE 2022

cities across the state on July 1, 2022. If you do business in California, you need to educate yourself on these increases and prepare now.

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Delaware’s Paid Family Leave: Here's What The New Law Says

These local minimum wage increases do not impact the salary threshold requirement for many exempt employees. However, non-exempt employees must be paid at least the applicable minimum wage, generally based on where the employee performs the work.

New West Hollywood Paid Sick Leave Ordinance

Which Cities Are Impacted? The following increased minimum wage rates will go into effect on July 1, 2022: 1. Alameda: $15.75/hour 2. Berkeley: $16.99/hour 3. Emeryville: $17.48/hour 4. Fremont: $16.00/hour 5. Long Beach: $16.73/hour for hotel workers; $16.55 for concessionaire workers 6. Los Angeles (City): $16.04 for all employers 7. Los Angeles (County, unincorporated): $15.96/hour 8. Malibu: $15.96/hour 9. Milpitas: $16.40/hour 10. Pasadena: $16.11/hour 11. San Francisco (City/County): $16.99/hour 12. Santa Monica: $15.96/hour 13. West Hollywood: $16.50/hour for employers with 50+ employees; $16.00/hour for employers with less than 50 employees; $18.35/hour for hotel workers

Nicole Kamm is a Partner at Fisher Phillips.

Effective July 1, 2022, full-time employees for all businesses in West Hollywood must be provided at least 96 compensated hours and 80 uncompensated hours per year for sick leave, vacation, or personal necessity. Part-time employees must be provided compensated and uncompensated hours in increments proportional to that accrued by someone who works 40 hours per week.

IRS Increases Mileage Rate As noted in our recent Insight, employers should also be aware that the IRS increased the optional standard mileage rate for business travel from July through December 2022 to 62.5 cents per mile. The authors would like to acknowledge Law Clerk Jacob Axelrad for his significant contributions to this Insight. This article first appeared here.

Hannah Sweiss is a Partner at Fisher Phillips.

Benjamin Z. Taylor is an Associate at Fisher Phillips.

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Pay Equity Reporting Requirements Now is the time for employers to report pay equity data to the Illinois labor department By Shawn D. Fabian and Katherine Oblak, Sheppard Mullin

or those larger Illinois employers, who have not yet reported payroll and diversity data to the Illinois Department of Labor (the “IDOL”), now may be the time. The IDOL recently issued guidance to help employers navigate their reporting requirements (the “Guidance”). In March 2021, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed an amendment to the Illinois Equal Pay Act of 2003 (the “Act”). The amendment requires private businesses with 100 or more employees in Illinois, that are

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required to file an EEO-1 report with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“Covered Employers”), to report certain employee payroll and diversity information to the IDOL. It also requires Covered Employers to apply for an Equal Pay Registration Certificate (“EPRC”). The law imposes some of the nation’s most expansive and rigorous reporting requirements. See generally 820 ILCS 112/11. Employers’ reporting obligations began on March 24, 2022.

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Pay Equity Reporting Requirements

The Guidance helps clarify which employers are “Covered Employers” for purposes of the Act.The Guidance explains a Covered Employer’s total number of employees is the total number of people who worked in or were based out of Illinois on December 31 of the 12-month calendar year immediately prior to their EPRC application submission. The Guidance further provides Illinois-based employees should be included in the total employee count, even if they work remotely outside of Illinois. A business with multiple locations must only include those employees who work for an Illinois location.

Non-compliant employers may receive a penalty “up to $10,000” for “a violation.”

The Act contains two separate reporting requirements. First, Covered Employers must submit: (i) A copy of their most recently filed EEO-1 report; and (ii) A list of all employees employed during the past calendar year. The employees must be categorized by gender, race and ethnicity. The list also must contain each employee’s start date; the total wages paid to each employee during the past calendar year; and “any other information the Department [of Labor] deems necessary to determine if pay equity exists among employees.” The Guidance clarifies two important points concerning this reporting requirement. One, the Guidance explains “wages” means any compensation paid to an employee, including wages, salaries, earned commissions, earned bonuses, stock and ownership shares but does not include retirement, health, or other fringe benefits. Two, the Guidance explains when reporting employee data for promoted employees, employers should list the employee’s original hire date, and then list the termination date as the date the employees were promoted. Employers should then create another row in the spreadsheet

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JUNE 2022

for that same employee with the “hire” date as the promotion date. Notwithstanding, neither the Guidance nor the Act defines what constitutes “any other information the Department deems necessary to determine if pay equity exists among employees.” Second, Covered Employers must submit a signed certification of compliance with the Act and other relevant anti-discrimination laws. Specifically, the Covered Employer must attest: ● The average compensation for female and minority employees is not consistently below the average compensation for male and non-minority employees within each of the major EEO-1 job categories for which the employee is expected to perform work, taking into account factors such as length of service, requirements of specific jobs, experience, skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions of the job, education or training, job location, use of a collective bargaining agreement, or other mitigating factors; ● Employees of one sex are not restricted to certain job classifications; ● Retention and promotion decisions are made absent consideration of sex; ● When identified, the employer corrects wage and benefit disparities; ● The frequency of which wages and benefits are evaluated; and ● The approach the employer takes when evaluating the wages and benefits that will be paid. Covered Employers authorized to transact business in Illinois as of March 23, 2021 must submit an application to obtain an EPRC, between March 24, 2022 and March 23, 2024, and must recertify every two years thereafter. A business with employees in multiple Illinois locations or facilities must submit a single application to the IDOL for all of its Illinois operations. Pursuant to the Guidance, employers should visit the IDOL Business Registration Page and submit their business’ contact information to determine whether they are a Covered Employer

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Pay Equity Reporting Requirements

for purposes of the Act. If so, then the IDOL will put the business on the list to provide a deadline to submit the application (within the two-year response timeframe).

should the IDOL determine a business has failed to comply with the Act, it may consider its own failure to notify a business of the recertification deadline as a mitigating factor.

If a business does not currently have more than 100 employees, registration is unnecessary. However, if a business’ workforce surpasses 100 employees, the business must submit its contact information to the IDOL. Further, any business with more than 100 employees but not authorized to transact business in Illinois until after March 23, 2021, must submit an application to obtain a certificate within three years of commencing business operations, but not before January 1, 2024, and must recertify every two years thereafter.

Failure to comply with the Act’s reporting requirements has serious repercussions. Non-compliant employers may receive a penalty “up to $10,000” for “a violation.” Neither the Act nor the Guidance clarifies whether a business can be subject to fines for multiple, separate Section 11 violations. See 820 ILCS 112/11.

The Act’s nuanced reporting requirements underscore the caution and care employers must exercise in adhering to their obligations. Notably, the IDOL’s failure to assign a business a registration date does not exempt the business from compliance with the Act’s reporting requirements. However,

To the extent Covered Employers have not already performed pay equity audits to ensure they can properly certify compliance with the Act’s requirements, they should promptly do so to rectify any disparate pay practices. Sheppard Mullin regularly audits employer pay equity practices to ensure compliance with the latest employment law developments. This article first appeared here.

Shawn Fabian is a Partner in the Labor and Employment Practice Group at Sheppard Mullin. Shawn represents management-side clients before federal and state courts across the country and before administrative agencies, including the DOL, EEOC, NLRB and various state and municipal human rights commissions and labor agencies. He also regularly represents clients in arbitrations and other avenues of alternative dispute resolution.

Katherine H. Oblak is an Associate in the Labor and Employment Practice Group at Sheppard Mullin. Katherine’s practice covers a wide range of employment litigation and counseling. She defends employers in state and federal courts and before various administrative agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

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Oregon’s Minimum Wage Increase The new applicable minimum wage rate depends upon both the location of the employer and where employees perform their work By Josh M. Goldberg, Barran Liebman

t is that time of year again when employers must ensure that their pay rates are consistent with Oregon’s annual automatic increases to the minimum wage. The new applicable minimum wage rate depends upon both the location of the employer and where employees perform their work.

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New Minimum Wage Rates These are the new minimum wage rates for each region effective July 1, 2022: 1. Portland metro area within the urban growth boundary: $14.75 2. Standard minimum wage: $13.50 3. Rural Oregon: $12.50

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The “standard minimum wage” applies to Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Deschutes, Hood River, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk, Tillamook, Yamhill, and Wasco counties as well as parts of Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties outside the urban growth boundary.

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Oregon’s Minimum Wage Increase

Oregon’s rural minimum wage rate applies in Baker, Coos, Crook, Curry, Douglas, Gilliam, Grant, Harney, Jefferson, Klamath, Lake, Malheur, Morrow, Sherman, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa, and Wheeler counties.

wage and overtime rates. Employers are also required to display an updated minimum wage poster in a conspicuous place beginning on July 1. The poster is available for download here.

If you are unsure if your company is within the urban growth boundary, please refer to this map maintained by Metro.

Employers may also consider the downstream consequences of these new wage rates, as these increases tend to create wage compression that may need to be addressed. They may also affect employers’ pay equity plans and higher paid employees’ wages, depending on their compensation structure and the specific language in their job offers or employment agreements.

Compliance Reminders Employers should consider taking some proactive steps to ensure compliance with Oregon’s new minimum wage rates. For example, for employers who outsource their payroll to third-party providers, it is worth confirming that your provider has input the appropriate minimum

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Josh M. Goldberg is an Attorney at Barran Liebman. Josh Goldberg counsels employers and defends them in litigation and in front of administrative agencies. He provides representation for a full array of employment and education matters, including discrimination, retaliation, pay equity, wage and hour compliance, employee classification, accommodation, leave, non-compete agreements, non-solicitation agreements, Title IX, and licensing issues.

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