Under federal and state law, employment law posters are to be posted in a conspicuous place where all employees can see them. The list of notices is long, and they are required by a patchwork of state and federal agencies. It’s not easy to keep track of all the notices the federal and California state […]
January 24, 2020
The new decade is starting off with a massive swell of important new laws and regulations that will affect California businesses. There are so many new laws and regulations that companies have to be on their toes especially at the start of 2020 to get their bearings. This is the first of a two-part entry […]
January 24, 2020
While health insurance premiums aren’t going up as much as they used to, both employers and their workers are still struggling with higher health care costs. According to the “2018 Health and Voluntary Workplace Benefits Survey,” published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute together with Greenwald & Associates, roughly half of all workers experienced an […]
October 3, 2019
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a measure into law that has implications for when employers are required to report serious workplace injuries to Cal/OSHA. The new law, AB 1805, broadens the scope of what will be classified as a serious illness, injury or exposure and is expected to increase the number of workplace incidents that […]
October 3, 2019
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation into law that will codify a court ruling from last year that set new ground rules for what constitutes an independent contractor, and which expands on that ruling. There’s been a lot written in the media about the legislation, AB 5, and unfortunately, much of it misses the […]
October 3, 2019
Starting in 2020, the threshold for California employers to be eligible for experience rating (X-Mod) has been reduced by order of the state insurance commissioner. Commissioner Ricardo Lara in September approved the recommendations by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau to lower thresholds for determining eligibility for experience rating and when a carrier needs to […]
October 3, 2019
As the job market tightens and competition for workers becomes fiercer, a majority of employers are boosting their employee benefits offerings and are paying less attention to reducing associated costs, according to a new study. The changes reflect the shifting priorities of the workforce and the newest generation to enter the job market. The challenge […]
April 18, 2019
Your workers’ underlying health can greatly affect the amount of time they are off the job recovering from a workplace injury. A new study has found that workers with pre-existing health issues like hypertension, obesity and mental health spend 60% more time recovering from workplace injuries than healthy workers. And because those injured workers are […]
April 18, 2019
If you have not gotten started on your efforts to provide anti-harassment training to your California employees, you need to get working on it now. Law passed last year puts the onus on most employers in the state to provide anti-sexual harassment training to their staff every two years. Starting this year, employers with five […]
April 18, 2019
As states continue to liberalize marijuana use, employers are left in a bind in terms of enforcing no-drug policies, respecting their employees’ right to privacy and keeping a safe workplace. While a majority of states have medical marijuana laws on their books, only a handful of states require employers to accommodate (to a degree) staff […]
January 23, 2019