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Note: This feature actively rolling out across our product. If you do not yet have access to it and are interested in our Fair Workweek offering, please fill in this form. |
- Background knowledge
- Who is covered by the Chicago Workweek Ordinance?
- What are Fair Workweek Requirements and how can Deputy help?
Background knowledge
This article assumes you have read these general articles on Fair Workweek:
You can also find more information about Chicago Fair Workweek here:
Note: If team members clock in and out using the Deputy Kiosk for iPad or Deputy Time Clock for Android, make sure these apps have been updated to the latest versions. Fair Workweek will only be supported on iOS Kiosk version 5.3.7 and Android Time Clock version 0.11.0 and beyond.
Who is covered by the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance?
In order to be covered by these laws, a business must be:
- Employs 100 or more employees among all of its locations (both inside and outside of Chicago) – this number is 250 employees for not-for-profit corporations;
- Employs among its global count of employees 50 Covered Employees (defined as an employee as opposed to a contractor, spending a majority of their time working in Chicago, performing a majority of their work in a Covered Industry, and earning less than or equal to $51,161.50 in salary or $30.80 per hour); and
- Is primarily engaged in a Covered Industry (building services, healthcare, hotels, manufacturing, restaurants, retail, and warehouse services).
- Franchises that have more than 3 locations might also be covered Employers.
For guidance on whether your business’s employees are covered by these protections, please consult with the ordinances or the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.
What are Fair Workweek Requirements and how can Deputy help?
Good faith estimate
A good faith estimate of working hours must be given to employees as an estimated set schedule that they can rely on. It must be provided to the employee at the time of hire, and an updated copy should be provided to the employee anytime there is a long-term change.
The good faith estimate must include the days, times and locations that an employee can expect to work each week and the average number of hours per week they should expect to work.
How can Deputy help?
Deputy allows you to provide good faith estimates to your team members through our regular working hours feature. Read more at:
Advanced notice for scheduling
Fair Workweek requires managers to provide employees with work schedules in advance. For Chicago businesses, this has to be 14 days in advance of the first day of a work period lasting for at least 7 days.
How can Deputy help?
Deputy allows managers to schedule shifts well into the future - and when published, employees will always have access to their shifts, allowing them to plan ahead. Read more at:
Schedule change consent
Subject to limited exceptions, employers cannot add time to an employee’s schedule without their consent within 14 days from the start of the work period. Consent must be 100% voluntary.
This includes situations such as:
- adding time to a shift or
- changing the day, time or location of a shift or
- requests to stay late to cover rush or
- request to cover for another employee who called out sick.
Consent must be documented in writing, or electronically and must reference the specific shift they are consenting to change.
How can Deputy help?
- When scheduling in Deputy with consent enabled, scheduling managers will be warned if they have created or changed a shift that will require consent from the team member and may trigger a pay premium.
- Note: To minimize occurrences of scheduling or changing shifts that trigger consent or incur pay premiums, scheduling managers are reminded that to comply with legislation, managers need to publish new or changed shifts 14 days before the beginning of the work period in which the shift occurs (not just 14 days before the start of the shift itself).
- In the event of last-minute unscheduled changes to shifts, consent is also captured through the use of shift questions at clock in and out. Shift questions are used to capture consent ahead of time for changed shifts, when an employee clocks in early or late, or to attest to missed meal and rest breaks. These get recorded in the timesheet for audit purposes. If you have assigned the Chicago Fair Workweek pay rate to your team member, we automatically provide attestation questions for the following scenarios:
- Unscheduled Shift
- Early In
- Early Out
- Late In
- Late Out
Predictability pay for schedule changes
Fair Workweek laws require employees to be paid premium payments in addition to their normal wages for changes to the published work schedule. This is aimed at rewarding employees who are flexible, and as a disincentive to businesses for making last-minute changes.
For Chicago, predictability pay is paid according to the following table:
|
Amount of notice (before first date on work schedule) |
Rate for additional hours (new or extended shift) |
Rate if no impact on total hours (without changing the total duration of the shift) |
Rate for reduced hours (shortened or removed shift) |
| Less than 14 days’ notice | 1x hour at Employee Base Rate | 1x hour at Employee Base Rate | 1x hour at Employee Base Rate |
| Less than 24 hours' notice (from the shift time) | 1x hour at Employee Base Rate | 1x hour at Employee Base Rate | The amount of hours reduced, payable at 0.5x Employee Base Rate |
How can Deputy help?
Deputy pay rates can take the stress out of manually calculating premium payments by automatically calculating premiums based on changes made to the schedule, allowing direct export straight to your payroll provider.
This library rate is available in both premium and enterprise accounts in the pay rates section of your team member's profile.
For more information on exactly how this calculates premiums, see Chicago Fair Workweek pay rates.
Right to rest (Clopening)
"Clopening" shifts are shifts where an employee works late one night and then works early the next morning.
Chicago requires employees to have at least 10 hours of rest between shifts across two work days. Businesses cannot schedule clopenings unless the employee consents to work the shifts and are paid a clopening pay premium.
How can Deputy help?
Deputy will alert the manager when they have scheduled a team member on a clopening shift by providing a warning that this shift may incur a clopening pay premium. If the manager still proceeds to schedule the shift, then the team member will be asked to consent to work this shift. Read more at
Access to hours
Fair Workweek laws also state that available shifts must be offered to existing part-time employees before hiring new ones. This allows part-time employees to become full-time if they wish.
- Open shifts must be posted in writing and include:
- The shifts being offered
- Their length
- Their schedule
- The process employees must undergo to request picking up the new shifts
- The criteria the employer will use to distribute the shifts
How can Deputy help?
Deputy allows managers to make open shifts that still require manager approval. We recommend using this feature to offer the shift to all participants, at which point the manager can decide on who fills it based on their own criteria (seniority, tenure, cost, etc).
We recommend posting these criteria and processes in the News Feed of Deputy so that all employees are able to see this, with a confirmation message so they can confirm they know the process.
Recordkeeping
Fair Workweek requires key information to be stored for several years that show compliance with the Fair Workweek laws. This includes copies of good faith estimates, rosters, timesheets, consents to schedule changes, records of all schedule changes, records of predictability pay, clopenings and clopening pay, and proof that open shifts were offered to current employees.
How can Deputy help?
Deputy will electronically store most records saved in the system, and in the event of an audit can provide employers with a copy of their records on request. Employers may also create Fair Workweek specific reports within Deputy to provide to auditors.