Ensure Legal Compliance with Online Signature Lawfulness for Sick Leave Policy in India

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but with that said let's get started I'm very excited to introduce our first webinar and our speaker we always start off the year with a labor law Workshop because it's one of the most important things going on and we have the amazing Christina karasis who is a labor and employment attorney with the law offices of Landor Verano and Davis and they're based in Encino Christine is also on our board of directors um they serve the whole greater LA area and all over Southern California and she's one of the top rated employment lawyers in San in the San Fernando Valley um she received her JD from Southwestern Law School in 2011 where she served as a Judicial inter extern and she received her ba with honors from the University of Southern California and political science with an emphasis in philosophy before joining land dagger Verano and Davis she ran a solo practice devoted to advising Employers in employment law matters and representing employees in a wide variety of employment disputes in order to broaden her understanding of the employer employee relationship she subsequently specialized in complex business litigation focusing her practice in areas of employment employee benefits and Health Care litigation and when she became to Lando Toronto Davis she discovered her passion for educating training and Advising and defending employers of all areas of labor and employment and she's been a frequent presenter for us and she's also very recently started helping a lot of our members and even non-members with their website compliance issues because that's a very big thing right now where businesses are being sued for um for not having an ADA Compliant website and so we've referred Christina several people and she's been helping them as well so there's a whole other gamut out there that still has to do with your business that Christina or some one of her colleagues can help you with so I'm going to turn it over to Christina to start our webinar thank you everyone for being here and happy New Year thank you for the introduction Nancy good morning and thank you for joining us this morning for business and focus webinars happy New Year everybody so um or 2023 legal update uh California legislature and Governor Newsom we're busy yet again in 2022 um and they've implemented some fairly broad changes that will affect a lot of companies and California employers so um let's go over the key bills so that you are in the know okay so first things first the most important part is let's make sure that you guys are paying enough to all your employees um and the first thing that I have on my list is the California state minimum wage as you may know the California minimum wage has has gone up and the amount that we're looking at is 15.50 as to all employers regardless of employer size so whereas before it was split up into um you know more than 26 versus you know small employers now it's regardless of size if you are a California employer you have to pay 15.50 per hour to all your employees originally the the minimum wage was scheduled to increase to Fifteen dollars per hour I'm not sure if you guys were tracking this but due to high inflation um I guess the state of California decided that the high inflation really triggered a rate that goes beyond 15 per hour um and so effective January 1st 2023 that's what we are faced with keep in mind whereas before uh 2023 there was an expected uh jump and I think a lot of us had a copy of this chart that would kind of looked at and said okay next year this is where we're going this year this is where we are in the foreseeable future what you can really expect is um the minimum wage to increase based on the National Consumer Price Index So based on inflation the state of California can say okay our next minimum wage is going to be X okay so stay tuned for that and um if and when anything changes um I'll definitely notify you guys and let you know that you need to keep up okay um as always uh there are also um local minimum wage increases so definitely um keep an eye out for things that pertain to your to your city to the city where you conduct business for example effective July 1st 2022 as I'm sure you know City of La went up to 1604 and the County of LA went up to 1596. foreign and ingly because as you know based on the state of California minimum wage the state of California also increases the annual wages for exempt employees so there is now an increase as a result of this increased minimum wage per hour um it translates into an increase for the exempt salaried employees and obviously we want to make sure that the um the duties that those employees are performing meet the duties test based on the type of exemption that they fit into so if they're in the administrative executive or professional exemption you want to make sure that they're making at least 64 480 dollars annually and that they also are performing the duties that fulfill that duties test if you have any specific questions I'd be happy to address them at the end keep in mind that in addition to these regular exemptions there are also industry specific exemptions including computer professional exemption which has got up significantly uh two hundred and twelve thousand dollars and 65 5 12 65 and 20 for a year which translates into over nine thousand dollars per month and again keep in mind uh as to computer professionals I know some of you are in the industry this is an extremely convoluted complicated test so you want to make sure to look at the requirements and make sure that your employees are actually falling within that exemption typically what I what I look at is is the employee performing things that a regular computer person cannot perform and if the answer is yes then it's likely that they are exempt but again I'm being facetious this is a very complicated um test that needs to be looked at very carefully so if you are classifying someone as exempt under the computer professional exemption make sure that they actually feel uh fulfilled the requirements let's go to the next thing um and I know a lot of you had questions about this um this is um SB 1162 and it's significantly amends and expands California's paid transparency and paid disclosure requirements um before SB 1162 California employers were required to provide a pay scale to applicants upon request by the applicant but only after an initial interview now due to the expansion applicants no longer have to wait until an initial interview so they can now make the request now just to be clear pay scale um is basically the salary or the hourly wage range um the employer reasonably expects to pay for the for the position whatever the position is um now keep in mind I think a lot of people are confused about this there are three categories of requirements um and one category that applies to all employers regardless of size second category that applies to only employers that have at least 15 employees or more and the third category applies to category of requirements applies to employers who have a hundred plus employees okay so we're going to start with the category that has um that applies to all employers and under this category um you must establish a pay scale for all positions you must provide the pay scale information to applicants like I mentioned upon reasonable request um and and like I said whereas before it was post-interview now it can be right away right in fact um it should be um something that is posted in the job description in the job ad that you're posting on LinkedIn uh or you know wherever you may be posting it okay so you must respond to requests from current employees as well by providing pay scale information for current position foreign along with those requirements that apply to all employers pertaining to what you have to disclose there's also record-keeping requirements okay and um essentially you have to uh keep a um a record of the specific job title and wage rate history for each employee not just throughout their employment but also three years after the employment ends now the next category I'm going to go to is the category of requirements that applies to employers with 15 plus employees okay so um you want to make sure that um again you are including a pay scale information in job postings um so if you're posting a job ad on any website indeed or LinkedIn you want to make sure that you have a pay scale that that goes along with that and also that applies to third parties so if you are using a third-party company that is helping you fill the position you want to make sure that their ad also contains the same information in the job posting okay um at this point there are a lot of questions um about this which some of which I'll try to answer but I just want to make you aware that you need to watch out for for their guidance that will come out uh from the dlsc because this is still in the process of being refined okay so the next category we're going to go to is um a list of things that are required that are applicable to employers with 100 plus employees Okay so what you want to be aware of is that there's now more things that you have to report in a nutshell right there's a lot of like details as to what you do have to report um so I have this bullet pointed in here um you gotta report the medium and mean hourly rate for each job category and it's broken out by race ethnicity sex um and you have to also submit a separate paid data report for each employee hybrid hired through Labor contracts such as staffing agencies and disclose the ownership names of all labor contractors used to supply such employees again lots of open questions and you need to watch for further administrative guidance from the dlse and I strongly suggest that you really do sit down with your HR staff and or any Consultants that you're using or attorneys to make sure you really nail this and and prepare the correct reporting the correct reports that you need to prepare let's go to the next category um so as far as the the next slide I want to just make sure that you are aware that there are deadlines um that that apply to employers with 100 plus employees um so the first reporting deadline is going to be in a few months May 10 2023 and thereafter it's going to be required to report every second Wednesday of May um you want to be aware that this isn't just something that they put out without enforcement um there are some um actual Financial penalties that are associated with this so under 1162 uh if employer fails to file the paid data report uh an employer may be subject to a penalty of up to a hundred dollars per employee for initial failure and up to 200 per employee for subsequent failures um so like I said I would really consider developing a policy and identifying individuals who are going to be handling these requests and questions such that they know exactly what they're talking about and don't subject you to further liability and we're talking about supervisors and managers let's go over to the next category which is leave of absence updates um and the updates that we're going to cover today are bereavement leave cfra and paid sick leave I know your favorite things right because those come up all the time so let's jump into the first one which is um bereavement leave and this is baby 1949 and it applies to employers with five plus employees and the update is essentially that um employee employers must allow five days of leave upon a death of an employee's family member and that includes spouse child parent sibling grandparent domestic partner or parent in law now this is not a paid leave so you know a lot a lot of my clients have had this type of leave that covers between one to three days sometimes one two or three days are paid you don't have to make five days paid if you've had a leave that pays up to two three days of employees leave related to bereavement you may leave it that way and then add the additional you know two three days depending on how many you've had and the rest of those days don't have to be paid okay the next category is um an expansion to the California family rights act under ab1041 and this applies to employers with five plus employees and um you want to make sure that you update your applicable policies to allow um for a person under this expansion designated as designated person and that category of designated person is defined as any individual with a serious health condition which is any individual related by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship and that individual under this new Sephora expansion may be identified by employee at the time of the request for the leave okay so it's not someone who has to be identified at the beginning of employment it can be at the time that you need to request a leave um and um we don't know at this point exactly who that person will be um I mean presumably the state is trying to allow individuals who have close friends to um you know to go and care for them but at the end of the day I really think this is going to come down to what the courts really Define this definition to mean and you want to be aware that you are allowed to limit employees to only take one such leave as to designated person for 12-month period okay and there is a record-keeping requirement which is that um you must retain records for designated person along with the dates of the request the next category is um as to paid sick leave and this is another expansion uh under ab1041 this applies to all employers and um again this really um adds the designated person as well but you want to be aware that this is different than the cifra definition under the paid sick leave expansion and I have it in here the designated person is a person identified by the employee at the time the employee requests the paid sick leave so the way I look at it is this is even broader than the designated person that was added under the the zifra under this paid sick leave expansion you can literally bring up just about anyone designate them as the designated person that you're going to identify at the time that you're requesting the basic leave and basically request the paid sick leave to go care for this person okay there's the same limitation of um one request for 12-month period for um you know as in Sif relief and um and again you have the same record retention requirement as with sifra foreign okay um let's visit the kobit 19 legislation I'm sure this is your favorite topic and has been for the last couple of years um I just want to um here's an overview of what we will review today I made a a checklist here uh there's supplemental paid sick leave which I'm sure some of you may have questions about uh covid-19 exposure notices um non-emergency prevention regulations and extension of covid-19 workers compensation provisions okay so let's start with um supplemental paid sick leave okay um while the supplemental basic leave has expired at the end of last year as I'm sure you've all been keeping track of um keep in mind that there are still local covid-19 supplemental paid sick leave ordinances in effect okay so for example like for the city of Oakland Long Beach City of La and the County of LA they've all had um longer requirements for employers to uh to satisfy so a couple of weeks ago the Los Angeles city council voted to end the city's state of emergency effective February 1st 2023 um so thereby that triggered the end of the city of La supplemental basic leave um for the ordinance uh that leave expires two weeks after the expiration of the local emergency period uh so that puts us at February 15th okay so just be aware of that go and uh Christina didn't the um the federal government extend the state of emergency though too I'm not sure because I just I just read that Becerra was going to extend it like another 90 days so that may change I'm just saying that may change everything let me take a look at that because I was not aware of the extension I don't know if it passed I'm just letting you know you mean as to this or asked to Federal well Federal but the state has been following the Federal and then the county has been trying to follow this I'm just saying it's triple down yeah as of now the state of Cal at the end of the year um with the exception of the local um extensions that apply because of the local ordinances uh I'll take a look at what you're referring to just to make sure um so that we're all on the same page if and if anything changes I will definitely send an update to the group so um so basically there are local ordinances that you want to be um that you want to be in the loop about because the requirements do apply to employers who operate in those um in those areas so as to for example Long Beach it talks about you know the city council will determine based on relevant info contained in the 90-day report um and the city like I said the Los Angeles County talks about two weeks after the expiration of local emergency period Oakland I don't know if any of you really are in that area but it's upon the expiration of local emergency period as well there is a link that I will circulate if you want to double check like if you're in the County of LA if you want to double check whether that ordinance applies to you there is a way to check there's a website to check if you are in the unincorporated area of LA because if you do operate there then the um the County of LA ordinance that's still in effect may be applicable to you okay um so let's go to the next one which is the covid-19 exposure notice is under ab 2693 and as you guys probably know since 2020 California employers have been required to provide notices of individuals being exposed or you know having potential covid-19 exposure and um pursuant to this update you basically have to continue providing notification of potential covid-19 exposure through January 1st 2024. and then that notice um it's now a little more flexible so I guess there's a little bit of good news um and you can you can post this notice um um not just via a letter but you can also post it in a public place um where you also post other employment updates and the notice must be posted within one business day of you learning about the potential exposure must be in English and in any language that the majority of the employees speak and you have to retain a log of the dates and any notice of exposure in the workplace um that's posted so there's also an update to what California OSHA is do so I don't know if some of you have heard about this but um I I just want to go over the emergency temporary standards which the future ones are going to say um non-emergency but as of now um on December 15 the non-emergency prevention regs were adopted but they were not yet approved by the office of administrative law so in the interim um the uh the emergency temporary standards the ETS that we've had since November 2022 they're still in effect until the new rights become effective now I know that on the federal level everything has now been relaxed okay and I also know that the California Department of Health has also relaxed everything but because your California employer you really have to abide by what Cal OSHA says and so yes we have cdph and the CDC but we want to also make sure we're waiting for the Cal OSHA to get up on the same page with those other agencies okay so as soon as we get more information we will circulate it but this is just a brief update um for the older requirements I have posted these just in case you guys need a refresher we'll go through them really quickly but essentially this one is for employees who test positive and um the requirements apply to all employees regardless of vaccination status previous infection or lack of symptoms and basically employees who test positive for covet they have to be excluded from the workplace for at least five days after the start of symptoms or after the date of first positive test if no symptoms and isolation can end and the employee can return to work after day five if the symptoms are not present or are resolving and you've got a specimen collected that's negative on day five or later okay let's go over quickly through the next category which is those employees who were exposed to a covid-19 case but who are asymptomatic and again this applies to all employees regardless of vaccination status and um those employees who were exposed they have to test within three to five days after the last contact and employees have to wear a mask if they are at work for a total of 10 days after exposure this next category is for those individuals who were exposed but who are symptomatic they have symptoms and again this applies to all employees regardless of vaccination status and um these this category of employees they have to be excluded and test as soon as possible um and the employee can return to work if um they get a negative test from a covet um uh sorry a coveted negative test at least five days after the start of symptoms or first positive test results and they have to wear masks similarly for 10 days especially when indoors otherwise if the employee is not following you know if the employee is not getting the negative test and or they're not wearing a mask then they basically cannot return to work until at least 10 days have passed since their symptoms began okay that's just a quick rundown of um of that as a reminder so um employees are also filing more wage in our class in paga representative actions um way more than even before I know it seems impossible but it really is a prevalent practice now um so I want to make sure this is just a quick slide and um there's there are additional developments in the widge in our Arena um that I'm gonna I'm not gonna go into now this is sort of the that I consider the most important one I wanted to put on your radar but there's a few other ones that are more nuanced but just as important and I'll have an additional topic presentation and a different PowerPoint for that discussion um that that's going to be presented at a later time but this specific one pertains to meal and respite practices because almost every wage and hour and or paga or class case that that we have with our firm has to do with meal and respect practices this is very prevalent there's a case that um that came out in 2022 that basically out of California's Supreme Court that confirmed that the half hour that the one hour premiums that are due for non-compliant meal periods cause or rest breaks constitute wages under California labor code so what that means is that um these old meal and rest break premiums that may be owed as a result of a defective meal or rest break are now triggering statutory penalties for inaccurate wage statements and waiting time penalties which really compile so um I know I'm going through this very quickly but please make sure your policy is compliant what you're doing is compliant in practice otherwise this is going to cost you tons of tons of money and headache in the long run and stay tuned for my next presentation on this let's dive into um the um that this next one um and this new legislation um uh basically is pertaining to a new category um uh it amends the Fair Employment Housing Act by adding um reproductive Health decision making as a new protected classification under Pika what this means is that this category may be included in the existing protected category of sex under via and just to clarify reproductive Health decision making includes um things like decision to use or acts as a particular drug device product or medical service or reproductive health so I'm sure we'll be seeing more guidance in the upcoming months on this but as of now flag it make sure you are aware and that it is added as a policy um let's go through some of these quickly this new legislation um uh basically uh is SB 1044 and it pertains to emergency conditions uh it basically uh prohibits an employer in the situation where they're the employee has a reasonable belief that the workplace is unsafe um from taking uh some kind of adverse action against that employee you know in other words retaliating against the employee for having a reasonable belief that the workplace is unsafe and with some exceptions employers are also prohibited from um any employee from accessing their mobile device or other communication devices to get emergency assist excuse me emergency assistance assess the situation safety or communicate with someone to verify their safety okay again I recommend that you update your policies and your employee handbook and cell phone policies ingly okay this next one pertains to the mandatory retirement savings plan and what it is is it is an amendment um and since June 30th uh 2022 employers with more than five employees had to be required to offer this retirement plan either through the Cal Savers program or private Market option and this is an expansion extension of that what this does is it extends this requirement to employ much smaller employer employers so now before it was five plus now it applies to if you have at least one or more employees then you're on the hook for providing this type of plan okay um and I think that there is a a carve out for under this legislation for solo for sole proprietorships uh or self-employed individuals uh and businesses that don't employ uh individuals other than the business owner so I know that's going to be one of the questions so if you're the business owner if you're the that one employee that you're excluded you don't you don't need to comply with this okay the next one is the employee restroom access to members of public with certain medical conditions and it requires businesses um open to the public that have restrooms for employees to allow individuals who have certain conditions medical conditions like Crone on ulcerative colitis irritable bowel bowel syndrome or any other similar medical conditions to use employee restroom during business hours so consider training employees on this new obligation if you're open to the public to make sure that you are compliant the next one is ab984 the motor vehicle tracking and it basically requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to allow vehicle location technology on fleet vehicles um it prohibits employers from using those devices to monitor employees except during work hours so again you know you cannot monitor an employee where they're going what they're doing post work hours and only if it's absolutely necessary even during the work hours for the performance of the employees duties and employers that do the tracking device they have to provide employees notice about the monitoring so that employees also have the right to disable that device during non-work hours if if they want to but technically it wouldn't even be necessary because as an employer not really require you're not really allowed to track them outside of business hours okay um the next one is data privacy policies and with this next one I just you want to determine if your business is covered by the California consumer Privacy Act CCPA and the California privacy Rights Act cpra and it applies I have this checklist here for you so you can determine that it applies to for-profit businesses business doing business in California and that be one of the criteria uh you're making gross annual revenue over 25 mil or you buy receive or share uh the personal identifiable information of a hundred thousand or more consumers or you derive 50 of annual revenue from selling or sharing consumers personal information okay and um if so if if it does apply to you based on the criteria I've outlined then um consider planning and implementing a compliance program in connection with um employees uh applicant personal information including um the bullet points I have here identifying which data is subject to CCPA requests you've got to update your privacy policies whether they're on your website or in a in written form that you provide you plan for processing privacy requests and absolutely train your employees and or vendors who will be implementing this plan and you want to also update the existing notices of collection and data security protocols so that employees and applicants know exactly what you're using what you're collecting the data for and have all the you know all the warnings and disclosures in that notice so that you are compliant okay so we have a little bit of time left at this time I will take any questions anyone may have um Christina I'll read you the questions but just give me one second to stand so let's start I gotta scroll I gotta scroll up give me a second okay let's see okay so the first question someone had asked about I think when you're talking about the exempt employees that's where the whole state correct correct yes that's based on the state minimum wage yes only it's not based on the logo so it's based on the state hourly minimum wage for the job posting yes if they use social media like Instagram or Facebook are they still required to post the pay scale absolutely it's and it's so important I can't even begin to to explain this to you it's gonna be so easy for the um for the administrative agencies that are enforcing this to crank down on companies because all they have to do is go on any social media and go and and find ads that that don't comply and they can track back to who you are and what you're doing and then basically go after you so if and when in doubt absolutely if you're posting anything publicly in search of a um you know to fill a job position absolutely follow with a uh with a scale a pay scale okay how does the pay transparency act okay just expanded my screen and I lost everything how does the pay transparency act apply to out-of-state employers with one or more employees in California uh are going to be applicable to that specific situation so if you have one employee in the state of California you're going to be subject to the requirements of uh you know essentially providing the pay scale to the applicants and the employee and the employee current employees um and you're going to have to also make sure that you are keeping the record of the specific job title and the wage weight history for each employee throughout the the employment as well as three years after the employment ends so that's that's how that's how you would have to comply with that because it's based on how many employees you have in California okay and then you know earlier you were talking about how the minimum wage went up but if you have employees in another state whose minimum wage do you follow so the way that so California wage and our laws uh are only intended to apply to California employees and residents okay if you have re if you have employees who never travel into the state of California um and who perform work remotely or who perform work out of outside of the State of California then you're going to abide by the minimum wage of the state where the employee resides and or works okay okay make sense yeah okay but if you wanted to give them California's minimum wage that's your prerogative you certainly can yes I have lots of clients who work across States and they basically make it sometimes it's a decision to make it easier for payroll you know because if it's a difference of a couple of dollars you just make a uniform minimum wage and be done with it other but in other instances you you know if the difference is you know six seven dollars between states that I understand there's a need to really um pick and choose what you're gonna do okay um is there a minimum number of days of paid sick leave for all employers so yes absolutely the minimum number of paid sick leave for all Employers in the state of California is 24 hours okay so if you're in the state of California and there is no local ordinance for example the city of La which requires 48 Hours you know a greater amount then you are subject to that 24-hour minimum requirement so basically an eight-hour day that's three days four hours six days hours yes and if you're within the city of Los Angeles that means that's six days correct but you can still give it to them by an hour hour however you know you decide to do that internally they don't have to take eight hours is what I'm saying if they're sick they want to take half a day off or two hours off they're still good for those two hours it's not yeah you could you could carve away at that 24 hours into smaller chunks for sure and I I believe that the um the requirement is that the there's a minimum of two hours so in other words you're supposed to break it up into two-hour increments um if you're not going to take the whole day off once if you have an employee that wants to use their sick leave and this is you you're like if I I'm just saying employee comes to me I want to go to the dentist and I'm going to take an hour of my sick leave for that time right you still have to give them two hours well if if you're gone for for less than two hours is that what you're asking yeah yeah yeah I mean if you've gone for less than two hours then it kind of depends you know most employees won't even want to take paid sick leave you know they'll just work work longer that day if it's that small you know uh they'll just work it off and work the rest of the day off and then make sure they're still working eight hours um but I'm pretty sure the requirement is that it has to be in increments of no less than two hours so someone had employees that were out with covid and at their office they get six big six big six days of paid sick leave which comes to like four hours per month is covet sick pay separate than regular sick pay and do we even still have covered sick pay I thought they took Got Away took away from that um so we still have covet sick pay are you talking about exclusion pay or are you talking about supplemental basic leave because covet Sigma is kind of a loaded term I think you're referring to supplemental basically um as we discussed earlier um expired um on December 31st 2022 and Nancy I will check into any federal updates because you know there are updates almost every day so it's kind of hard to keep track of this stuff they expanded it in December for another 90 days okay so I will check into that because if it's if it's Federal um which reminds me of like ffcra um it it may be um you know it may be that only uh select um employers are subject to this right right so I'll have to check and let you know but usually it pertains to like larger employers I'm sorry to interrupt Nancy that was my question I know so I have I have employees that accrue to six days a year but I have two people out all week this week five days with covet so do I need to give them the sick six normal days and these five days that is correct um Steve is that your name uh so the supplemental basically um well based on the name it's it's on top of what you owe right it's on top of the regular basic leave but if you're not operating in the city of if you're not operating in the County of LA like an unincorporated area of the county are you okay well in that case then yes you are regardless of what federal additions or uh revisions that might have taken place if you are operating in an unincorporated area of the County of LA then yeah he's he's in Van Nuys he's in the City and County of LA I see you're in Van Nuys okay so he's in the City and County of Los Angeles right but are you in the unincorporated no no he's in the City and County of Los Angeles right so so I don't think this applies to you what I want to do um Steve I'll send you a link that basically will help you check for your address and okay it's Christina I can 100 tell you he is an incorporated area he is literally like you're in Encino the city of Savannah eyes is not a city it's part of the city of Los Angeles so it doesn't apply to you how many employees do you have eight oh yeah no you're you're good you don't have to provide it I I will have to check what Nancy is referring to in terms of the federal update because we'll have to check to see if it applies to you given that you have eight employees but the local ordinances are not gonna um be applicable to you because you have less than 500 employees which is what the city of La uh supplement paid sick leave applies to and the County of LA is only for those who operate out of unincorporated areas and you're not in one okay so I don't have to give them the extra sick time off no you're only on the hook for the six thank you and if they're part-time if they're accruing they may not reach that they're full-time but okay thank you thank you welcome okay can they work from okay can it so you have if someone has cobit they have to take you have to have them not be at the workplace for five days you said correct they got a test after the fifth day yes can they work from home during those five days and still work well if they're still if they're working then they're technically not qualified for paid sick leave first that's not what the question was the question is you earlier it was they have to take off for five days that's what you had said earlier if someone says positive they have to be excluded from the workplace for five days oh sure apps are they allowed then to work from home versus them taking sick leave for those five years absolutely if it's a company and the position that allows them to work remotely perform their job duties then absolutely by all means yes because we've had people ask us this many times that their employees don't want to work and they think then they could go home but they are able to work from home so that they're able to work from home they're going to work from they can still work from home during those five days absolutely yeah um is there any specification of which covid tests are acceptable so the antigen tests are the ones we've got to use now other ones you're going to keep testing for you know up to 90 days so uh any test that's basically an antigen test um that is a um I I think everything that's now purchased over the counter is is fine as long as no PCR tests no no BCR test because then you like I said then you'll never test negative you're not going to press negative for a while yeah you shut the virus exactly yeah okay so you have to use an antigen test for the paid transparency reporting is the 100 plus based on number of employees from 2022 or starting now in 2023. um you know that is a really good question and I don't know the answer to that um so that's something that I'll have to check to see in the forthcoming guidance uh but I mean presumably it's the um it's the number of employees that you currently have um but then there may be a look back period that um you know I'll have to double check and let you know okay Blanca we will let you know that answer yes um where can we find a template for the written notice for tracking vehicles um I I provide one okay that'd be great you can send that to you and then just send every interview since I'm going to be gone okay so on Cal Savers how are employees to be notified of Cal Savers so the employee handbook mentioned the program if they don't have their own plan absolutely yeah that's what we're doing we're basically putting it into the employee handbook so so in the meantime if it's not in the employee handbook how does the employer notify the employees basically have a standalone policy or you just talk to employees if you're a small employer and basically say you know we're implementing this uh most of my clients find out about this because their their payroll system triggers a little alert that says hey you're required to have this thing um and then they just have a conversation with their employees or they have a written policy or an email there's no you know there's no like specific way but as long as you notify your employees that this is available to them um then you should be fine okay paid transparency follow-up does the May reporting for pay transport transparency apply to out-of-state employers so Russell I'm gonna like so you mean so the employers out of state but they have employees in California is that what you mean yes and they have more than yes the California reporting in May yes only for their employees that are in California though yes that's correct the company out of state with one sales rep in California has to report only for that California rep not their whole Workforce yes right I think the answer is yes yeah I think the answer is yes and this is this is another follow-up that I'll have to do because again I'm not really sure how they're calculating how many employees this is something I have to follow up on okay do we have to accept self-administered self-red at home covet test or does employee have to go somewhere and get a test self-administered is fine and they can um you know as that's that's what most of my clients have been doing now is you basically as long as it is a a standard um FDA approved test um that shows um the result and you know they show it to you and it looks legitimate then I would I would accept it um some some companies have a requirement that you um that you do the test via Zoom so in other words you you know you they they watch you do it and then you you look at the results and then you can do that um that that's lawful as well you can have someone one designated representative of your company who is in charge of basically being the witness for administering this test even if the employee is doing it at home self-administering but as long as they can see you doing it then then that's fine as well okay so that's our last question does anyone have any other questions because we promised we'd have you out of here in an hour and we're very proud today yeah we are I can I ask one last question I'm sorry no no Steve you're not that good okay about 30 seconds real quick then I have a company vehicles that they are allowed to drive them during working hours but they're not allowed to drive them after hours if I cannot track them after hours how do I know if they're abusing our policy well that's that's something that you have to vet your employees and if you can't trust them then you shouldn't have them driving your vehicles I mean I think the policy you should have an internal policy that makes clear that a violation of your policy will result in termination and I think make it very strict but if you have if you do have a written policy that makes that clear and that you actually enforce that's the only way to find out but you're not allowed to track them not under this new it's really anti-employer I'll tell you it really is I know I don't know why you're surprised true okay thank you you're welcome and by the way Steve I totally understand what you're saying because we have another member and they have their cars come back every night but they have like a tracking system on the cars because they use a you know they actually have someone that dispatches and everything and they have to know where the car is they know who who's the closest descent to the next location that's cool right and so then they send but they they bring the cars back at night they've always done that but they do let like one employee who covers Palmdale take the car because he lives in Palmdale and not just services that area and so it's the same thing right how do you know if they're not using the car after hours unless maybe it's you have to have them send in the the miles on the car when they're done at the end of the day like you know and in the morning I don't know I'm just like give me that yeah you can come up with some ways like that like Nancy suggested but you cannot you know anything short of tracking them okay should be fine thank you you're welcome well we as we mentioned at the very beginning this PowerPoint will be available to you probably next week we are very short staffed right now and um the recording we edit it so you don't have all like the little beginning chatter and everything of us talking about stuff so it will probably be up on our YouTube channel which on YouTube is gsfbcc like greater San Fernando Valley Chamber GSF BCC so you'll be able to find it there Christina will check on those answers and send them to femi and she will get them out to everyone and I will be out of town next week so if you need anything you can contact view me and I want to thank everyone for being here and happy New Year