Overview
Disclaimer: Information in this document is provided for convenience and not as legal advice. You and your business are solely responsible for verifying with your attorney and/or HR expert that all information is up-to-date and accurate. Deputy can create custom pay conditions and stress profiles as a Professional Service.
The Deputy pay rule library offers two pay rate versions of California labor law:
- California Labor Law with Meal Break Waiver
- California Labor Law without Meal Break Waiver
Both pay conditions 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.
Background
California law allows employees to waive (agree not to take it or receive any penalty pay for missing it) meal breaks for shifts less than 6 hours or shifts less than 12 hours. If the total work period per day for an employee is no more than 6 hours, the meal break may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and the employee. Similarly, if the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal break may be waived only if the first was not waived.
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 6 hours. In the event that an employee is entitled to 2 meal breaks, they are only entitled to waiving one and must take the other.
California Labor Law pay rates in the Deputy pay rule library
Base Rate and Overtime
- Receive their base hourly rate for any hours that do not fall into any other scenarios.
- Receive 1.5x their hourly base rate for any hours worked over 8 hours in a workday.
- Receive 1.5x their hourly base rate for any hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek.
- Receive 1.5x their hourly base rate for any hours worked 8 hours or less on the 7th consecutive day in a workweek.Receive 2x their hourly base rate for any hours worked over 12 hours in a workday.
- Receive 2x their hourly base rate for any hours worked more than 8 hours on the 7th consecutive day in a workweek.
Meal and rest breaks
- Employers of California employees must provide a 10-minute paid rest period for every four hours worked or 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 5 hours worked or 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 5 but less than or equal to 6 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 that are separated by more than 1 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.
When does California Labor Law apply? California locations and employees
California Labor Laws will apply only to employees who are employed by Californian businesses AND reside in California.
Therefore, these two conditions must BOTH be met in Deputy for the California Labor Law pay rates to apply to an employee:
- The employee must be assigned to a Location in Deputy with a Californian address in the Location settings. ie. when configuring the location 'California' must occupy the state field.
- The employee must have a California Labor Law pay rate assigned to their employee profile.
Note: If any employee resides in another state but is assigned to work at a business with a Californian address then they should not have the California Labor Law pay rate attached to their profile.
Workday and workweek definitions
For the purposes of applying California Labor Law, Deputy applies the following definitions:
- Workday is a calendar day from midnight to 11:59 pm.
- Workweek is a calendar week from Sunday through Saturday.
Missed break premium pay
To enable you to comply with the missed break premium pay component of the California Labor Law, Deputy uses attestation questions when employees clock out of any shift where a rest or meal break was required.
IMPORTANT: Do not change the settings of the attestation question from the default or this feature may not function correctly.
- The question for missed rest breaks will pop up on clock out of any shift of 3.5 hours or longer.
- The question for missed meal breaks will pop up on clock out for any shift of 5 hours or longer.
If the employee answers the question as “No” they were not provided with the required breaks, the missed break premium pay will be applied to their timesheet.
Note: For employees with meal break waivers, Deputy recommends using the California Labor Law w/ Meal Break Waiver version of the pay rate. The attestation questions will still be asked at the end of each shift but the missed break penalty pay is not applied in the case of a waiver.
The attestation question responses provide documented evidence for the employer of the employee being provided with a 30 min meal break for every 5 hours worked during the shift, and paid 10 minute rest breaks for every 4 hours or major fraction thereof.
Upon clocking out for a shift, the employee is presented with the attestation question:
“I attest that for every 5 hours worked this work period, I took a continuous and uninterrupted meal break of at least 30 minutes."
“I attest that I took a 10-minute rest break for every 4 hours worked or major fraction thereof.”
This question will default to a Yes answer, and employees must actively select No to change the default. If the Employee selects No, they will be required to fill out a comment explaining why they were not provided with a meal break.
An example of what an employee might write as a comment here are:
“I planned to take a break but then a customer arrived and there was no one else to serve them so I never got to take a break”
A No answer MAY trigger missed break premium pay providing other conditions have also been met, such as those described in the situations below:
Conditions NOT triggering rest or meal break premiums
- If the employee works a shift shorter than 3.5 hours they will not be asked the Rest Break attestation question when they clock off and the rest break premium will not apply.
- If the employee answers Yes to the rest break attestation question after completing a shift of 3.5 hours or longer, then Deputy will NOT apply a Rest Break Premium to their timesheet.
- If the employee works a shift shorter than 5 hours they will not be asked the Meal Break attestation question when they clock off and the meal break premium will not apply.
- If the employee answers Yes to the meal break attestation question after completing a shift of 5 hours or longer, then Deputy will NOT apply a Meal Break Premium to their timesheet.
Note: Deputy does NOT check that a rest or meal break was actually clocked in this instance. The employee may have willingly chosen to take a shorter break or miss a break completely in agreement with their manager. However, as long as the employer provided them with the opportunity to take the break, then they would answer Yes to the Meal Break attestation question and the Meal Break Premium will not be applied.
Conditions triggering rest or meal break premium
If the employee answers No to the rest break attestation question after working 3.5 hours or more, then Deputy will apply the rest break premium. Deputy does not check whether the employee clocked in and out for the rest break.
If the employee answers No to the Meal Break attestation question after completing a shift of 5 hours or longer then Deputy will check the following conditions before applying the Meal Premium:
- the shift worked is actually 5 hours or longer
- that no break of longer than at least 30min was clocked
Therefore, if the employee answers No and clocks a break of 29 mins or less after working 5 hours or more, then Deputy will apply the meal break premium.
Missed Rest Breaks
Based on the answer to the rest break attestation question, Deputy will apply a missed rest break premium of 1 hour at the Employee’s base rate per workday in the following conditions:
| Shift length (hh:mm:ss) | Breaks owed | Premiums owed if not taken |
| <3:30:00 hours | 0 | 0 |
| 3:30:01 - 6:30:00 hours | 1 | 1 |
| 6:30:01 - 10:30:00 hours | 2 | 1 |
| 10:30:01 - 14:30:00 hours | 3 | 1 |
Example
Missed Meal Breaks
Based off of the answer to the meal break attestation question, Deputy will apply a meal break premium of 1 hour at the Employee’s base rate per workday in the following conditions (assuming no Waiver of Meal Breaks exists):
| Shift length (hh:mm:ss) | Breaks owed | Premiums owed if not taken |
| <5:00:01 hours | 0 | 0 |
| 5:00:01 - 10:00:00 hours | 1 | 1 |
| 10:00:01 - 15:00:00 hours | 2 | 1 |
| 15:00:01 - 20:00:00 hours | 3 | 1 |
Example
Split shift premium pay
A minimum wage employee with a split shift schedule within a workday must be owed a split shift premium. A split shift is two shifts separated by more than 1 hour in the same workday.
If the split shift extends into the next workday, only the hours worked on the Start Date of the shift count towards the Premium. A split shift is two shifts separated by more than 1 hour in the same workday.
ONLY the base rate hours count towards the actual cost of the split shift premium. This means that any Premiums, Overtimes, or any type of multiplied rates are not included in determining the number of units of Split Shift Premium owed.
Deputy’s California Pay Rate Library is currently configured to use state minimum wage.
Note: Split shifts are NOT guaranteed to work with auto-approval of shifts in Deputy.
Reporting the Split Shift Premium
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 1 hour at minimum wage.
If the manager believes that a split shift premium has been applied incorrectly then the timesheet can be manually amended.
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 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 that they were relieved of their duties for the entire break period. Therefore, we always require the employee to answer the questions.
My employee worked a 10 hour shift without any breaks, but only received 1 Meal Break Premium and 1 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 type of multiplied rates are not included in determining the number of units of Split Shift Premium owed.