Overview

The Deputy pay rate library offers two versions of California labor law:

• California Labor Law with Meal Break Waiver

• California Labor Law without Meal Break Waiver

Both pay rates are identical, with one exception: the California Labor Law with Meal Break Waiver version of the pay rate is designed for use with employees who have signed a meal break waiver and will only apply a missed meal break premium for missed meal breaks on shifts of six hours or longer in length.

Background

Read more about California labor Law on Deputy's Compliance hub.

California law allows employees to waive (agree not to take it or receive any penalty pay for missing it) meal breaks for shifts of six hours or less, or waive second meal breaks for shifts of twelve hours or less. If the total work period per day for an employee is no more than six hours, the meal break may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and the employee. Similarly, if the total hours worked are no more than twelve, the second meal break may be waived only if the first was not.

Note: In the California Labor Law with Meal Break Waiver version of the pay rate, the meal break attestation question will not be asked unless the shift is longer than six hours. If an employee is entitled to two meal breaks, they are only entitled to waive one and must take the other.

Pay Rules in Deputy's California Labor Law Pay Rate

Meal and rest breaks

• Employers of California employees must provide a ten-minute paid rest period for every four hours worked or a major fraction thereof. If they fail to do so, the employer must pay the Employee one extra hour of pay at the Employee’s regular hourly rate.

• Employers of California employees must provide a 30-minute meal period for every five hours worked or a major fraction thereof. If they fail to do so, the employer must pay the Employee one extra hour of pay at the Employee’s regular hourly rate.

• If the shift is greater than five but less than or equal to six hours, employees may waive the meal period. If waived, employees are not entitled to any penalty pay.

Split shifts

• Employees who earn the minimum wage will receive additional pay known as a “split shift premium” when their schedule includes a split shift. A split shift is two shifts in one day, separated by more than one hour of unpaid time.

• Employees will receive 1.5x their hourly rate of pay for hours worked on any public holidays designated as such by the employer in the schedule.

California Meal Break Allowance

How it Works:

• This is a pay condition/premium allowance that applies one unit of premium allowance pay in addition to base pay if an employee had worked at least five hours total in a single day (as a single shift) and answered “no” to the accompanying attestation question.

• If the meal break is answered no, the pay rule will check to see how many breaks are owed and if they have been taken. This depends on the configuration of whether they do or don’t have a meal break waiver.

  • No waiver:
    • One meal break: 5-10 hours
    • Two meal breaks: 10-15 hours
    • Three meal breaks: 15-20 hours
    • Four meal breaks: >20 hours
  • With waiver:
    • One meal break: 6-12 hours
    • Two meal breaks: 12-15 hours
    • Three meal breaks: 15-20 hours
    • Four meal breaks: >20 hours

If the question has been answered ‘no’ and there aren’t the required number of breaks, the premium will be applied. 

Note: 

• If the required breaks have been clocked, the premium is not applied even if they answer no. 

• The pay rule does not directly check when the breaks have been applied.

Attestation Question Details:

• Custom Field Name: “fwwreceivedallmealbreaks”

• Question Asked (configurable): “Received All Meal Breaks”

• Question Description (configurable): “I was offered the opportunity to take a continuous and uninterrupted meal break of at least 30 minutes for every 5 hours worked. If I did not take a meal break, I did so voluntarily and was not forced to work through the meal break.”

• When does the question trigger?:

  • It enforces the rule that an employee must receive a 30-minute (0.5-hour) meal break for every five hours of continuous work.

  • It analyzes the total shift duration, breaks it into Five-hour segments, and checks if a valid meal break was taken within each segment.

  • If any Five-hour segment is found without a proper meal break, it triggers the question.

  • This also means if the duration is less than five hours, it will not trigger.

Alternative Configurations:

• It is possible to always make the attestation question show, rather than depending on whether or not breaks have been taken and the length of the shift. 

  • To do this, go to" Business Settings" and under "Time and Attendance" select "Shift Questions." You can then find the relevant Timesheet field named Received All Meal Breaks and edit this to remove the Display Rules.
    Important: Do not change the name of the API field.

    

• It is possible to build a rule that triggers the hour payment based purely on whether a meal break has been clocked within a particular time frame and of a particular length. This does not use the attestation question. To do this, select Yes from the "Meal Break Premium pay rule" to "Use Clocked Break Times." This will automatically calculate if a team member’s clocked breaks are of the required length and taken at appropriate times, without needing the attestation question.

  

California Rest Break

How it Works:

• There is an attestation question that is triggered on clock-out (and updated) if an employee has worked at least 3.5 hours total in a single day (as a single shift).

• If the shift is of sufficient length and the question is answered ‘no’, the premium (one hour at base rate) is triggered.

Attestation Question Details:

• Custom Field Name: “fwwreceivedallrestbreaks”

• Question Asked (configurable): “Received All Rest Breaks”

• Question Description (configurable): “I attest that I was offered the opportunity to take a ten-minute uninterrupted rest break for every four hours worked or major fraction (3.5 hours) thereof, if I did not take a rest break, I do so voluntarily and was not forced to work through the rest break.”

• When does the question trigger?:

  • It enforces a rule for shorter paid rest breaks.

  • The rule here is for a ten-minute break for every 3.5 hours of work.

  • Similar to meal breaks, it analyzes the shift in 3.5-hour segments to ensure a valid rest break was taken. If not, it triggers the question.

Alternative Configurations:

• It is possible to always make the attestation question show rather than depending on whether or not breaks have been taken and the length of the shift. To do this, go to "Business Settings", then  "Time and Attendance", and "Shift Questions". You can then find the relevant Timesheet field "Received All Rest Breaks".  Edit this to remove the Display Rules.
  Important - do not change the name of the API field.

  

• It is possible to build a rule that triggers the hour payment based purely on whether a rest break has been clocked within a particular time frame and of a particular length. This does not use the attestation question. This can be configured with the "Missed Break Allowance" within the "Pay Rate Builder. It is recommended that one of these be added for each four-hour period.

  

• It is possible to show the question or apply the pay rule only for particular areas/locations.

California Split Shift Premium

How it Works:

• A premium is applied if there are two shifts in the same day with a gap of at least one hour.

How it pays:

The California Split Shift payment uses both the employee base rate and the local minimum wage. The legal requirement is that the employee, when having a split shift, is paid a total of the local minimum wage for each hour worked, plus one. This means that if the employee is paid at a higher value than the local minimum wage, they can theoretically earn less than an hour of pay.

The local minimum wage is set as the Split Shift Premium value, which is by default $0.

From here, if a split shift has been determined to occur, the calculation looks at:

• (Number of hours worked in the day + One) * Split Shift Rate = Required value for day
  This is compared to (Number of Hours worked) * Employee Base Rate.
• The difference between these is then divided by the Split Shift rate and returned as this (for example, .5 units of split shift pay).

This means that the amount of split shift premium pay owed depends upon the employee's pay rate. In Deputy, the Split Shift Premium is calculated in Units. Each Unit is intended to represent one hour at minimum wage. The customer must specify the dollar amount of the split shift premium in the pay rule in the employee's profile.

If the manager believes that a split shift premium has been misapplied, then the timesheet can be manually amended.

Alternative Configurations:

• The base pay rule can be modified to the default rate within PRB, rather than editing each team member individually. To do this, navigate to PRB, then go to the split shift premium. Editing this value will update for all users sharing the current value.

  

• Can be configured to return a flat one hour, rather than the complete pro-rate calculation. To do this, change the "Use Prorata Calculation" setting to No in Pay Rate Builder. 

  

Frequently asked questions

Does Deputy apply missed break premiums if the break is not taken at the recommended times during the shift?

No, Deputy only applies a missed break premium if the employee states they were not provided with a break and they were owed a break based upon the length of their shift and the existence of a waiver.

Does Deputy require employees to clock out for all breaks?

No, employees must only clock out for meal breaks as they are unpaid. Employees should be paid for rest breaks. Missed rest break premiums will apply based on the employee's answer to the attestation question.

Why does Deputy always ask the attestation questions for breaks, even if the employee clocked out for them?

Even if the employee clocks out for a break, Deputy cannot assume they were relieved of their duties for the entire break period. Therefore, we always require the employee to answer the questions by default. This can be configured as mentioned above.

My employee worked a ten-hour shift without any breaks, but only received one Meal Break Premium and one Rest Break Premium. Why did they not receive a Premium for each break they missed?

Deputy only applies one of each type of Missed Break Premium per workday.

What types of pay conditions count towards the Split Shift Premium?

Only the base rate hours count towards the actual cost of the split shift premium. This means that any Premiums, Overtimes, or any multiplied rates are not included in determining the number of units of Split Shift Premium owed.

While Deputy’s U.S. Pay Rate Library is designed to Simplify Shift Work by reducing the time required to apply the relevant Legal Requirements through automation, it is not a substitute for payroll or legal advice, nor is it intended to relieve you of your obligation to comply with the Legal Requirements applicable to your business. It is ultimately each customer’s sole responsibility to pay its employees correctly and in compliance with all Legal Requirements. Please review our Product Specific Terms for more information about your compliance responsibilities.