Chicago Fair Workweek FAQ (Enterprise customers only)

How do I get Deputy's new Chicago Fair Workweek platform?

Deputy offers its Fair Workweek platform to Enterprise customers. If you are a covered employer (see below), please contact Deputy's Enterprise Support Team to activate Deputy Enterprise and access Chicago Fair Workweek.

Which employers are covered by Chicago Fair Workweek?

The law is more broad than other Fair Workweek laws and covers employers in the following industries:

• building services
• health care
• hotel
• manufacturing
• restaurant*
• retail
• warehouse services

Companies in those industries that employ 100 or more employees (250 or more employees for not-for-profit corporations), at least 50 of whom are considered “Covered Employees” (see below) are covered by the law.

*Restaurant Exemption: The Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance applies only to restaurants with at least 30 locations and 250 employees globally. Franchisees with three or fewer locations in Chicago are not covered.

Which employees are covered by Chicago Fair Workweek?

An employee is covered by the law if they spends the majority of their time at work in a covered industry (see above) while physically present in the city of Chicago and they earn $50,000 or less per year as a salaried employee or $26.00 or less per hour as an hourly employee.

When did the law go into effect?

July 1, 2020.

What is a good faith estimate and how does it work in Deputy?

Upon hiring, employers must provide new hires with a good faith estimate (GFE) of what their typical work schedule will look like. The GFE must contain all of the following information:

Deputy's Good Faith Estimate tool makes it easy to provide a compliant good faith estimate to covered employees.

How do I provide a GFE in Deputy?

Deputy's Good Faith Estimate tool enables covered employers to populate the GFE and publish it to employees with the click of a button. The GFE tool may also be used to revise a GFE if the employees' hours of work do not match the original GFE.

When do I provide a new hire’s first work schedule?

Employers must provide new hires with a copy of their initial written schedule on or before their first day of work. The initial work schedule must include all shifts they are scheduled to work through the end of the currently posted work schedule.

How far in advance must I publish work schedules?

For existing employees, covered employers must provide covered employees with a written work schedule at least 10 days before any new work schedule begins, which will increase to 14 days beginning on July 1, 2022.

Like new hires, existing covered employees have the right to request modifications to their schedules and the employer must respond in writing accepting or rejecting the modification within three days of a request.

What if I need to change the schedule after the 10-day (or 14-day) notice period?

Employers must post changes to the schedule within 24 hours of the schedule change, and employees have the right to decline shifts that are changed within the 10-or 14-day advance notice period.

Is employee consent required for a schedule change?

Yes. Employers cannot require employees to work any changed shifts without written or electronic consent. To obtain consent, employers should offer the changed shift to the employee and request that they accept it electronically in Deputy.

Do I have to pay employees premium pay if I change their work schedule?

A: Yes, if an employee’s schedule is changed after the advance notice period, they are entitled to predictability pay. Deputy automatically applies predictability pay for employer-initiated changes to an employee's schedule.

Covered Employees receive one hour’s additional pay when hours are added to a shift, or a shift’s time or date is changed with no change to the number of hours, within 10 days of the beginning of the Work Schedule during which that shift takes place.

Covered Employees also receive one hour’s additional pay when hours are subtracted from a shift within 10 days of the start of the Work Schedule but with more than 24 hours’ notice of the beginning of the impacted shift.

When hours are subtracted with less than 24 hours’ notice of the beginning of a shift, Covered Employees are entitled to be paid 50% of their regular rate of pay for any scheduled hours that they do not work on that shift as a result of the change.

What if an employee changes their own schedule (e.g. by swapping shifts in Deputy with another employee)?

No predictability pay is applied for employee-initiated schedule changes in Deputy.

What if an employee calls their manager and asks the manager to change their schedule in Deputy?

Predictability pay is not owed since the change was requested by the employee. In order for this to work in Deputy, the manager should tell the employee to go into Deputy and make the change themselves. Alternatively, the manager can make the change, and then will need to manually remove the predictability pay from the employee’s roster.

Are there any circumstances where Deputy will not apply predictability pay automatically?

Yes. In the following circumstances, no predictability pay will be applied:

• Employee-initiated changes (e.g. swapping shifts in Deputy);
• Changes of 15 minutes or less;
• Hours subtracted due to termination of employment (***Employer must first archive employee in Deputy before deleting their shifts; otherwise the system won’t know they’ve been terminated and predictability pay will be auto applied).

What is the “access to hours” requirement?

Employers must offer available shifts to current employees before hiring new employees.

How do I comply with the access to hours requirement using Deputy?

Employers may provide offers of available shifts to their employees using the News Feed feature. Employees may then respond via the News Feed if they wish to bid on all or a portion of the offered shift(s). Employers may then award shifts to employees by using the “offer shift” feature in Deputy and the employee should then accept the offered shift. It is important for employers to follow this workflow to avoid predictability pay being inadvertently applied.

What is the clopening or right to rest requirement in the Fair Workweek law?

A clopening happens when an employee is scheduled to work any hours that are scheduled less than 10 hours after the end of a previous day’s shift. Employees have the right to decline to work clopening shifts, and if they elect to work, they must be paid 1.25 times their regular rate of pay for the entire shift.

How do I obtain consent for a clopening?

Deputy recommends using the offer shift feature to offer a clopening to an employee. They may then accept or decline to work the clopening shift. If they accept, Deputy will automatically apply the clopening premium.

Does the law require me to retain records?

Yes. The Ordinance also mandates that employers maintain records for three years that show compliance with the Fair Workweek law, including good faith estimates of work schedules, modifications to GFEs, written consent to work shifts, offers of work shifts to existing employees and responses to those offers, as well as payroll records showing predictability pay. Such records must be produced if requested by an employee or the enforcement agency to be designated.

What will Deputy provide if I am audited?

Deputy will provide employers with a copy of their Deputy records upon request. Employers may also create numerous reports within Deputy to provide to auditors.

If COVID-19 causes a substantial change to an Employer’s operations that creates the need for a schedule change, the Employer is exempt from certain requirements of the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance (right to decline, predictability pay, and pay for cancelled hours and shifts) for the Work Schedule during which the change takes place, as well as the following Work Schedule. Employers who fall within the exemption should manually remove Fair Workweek premium pay from employee timesheets during impacted weeks.