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- Background knowledge
- Who is covered by the Emeryville Workweek Law?
- 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 Emeryville 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 Emeryville Fair Workweek?
In order to be covered by these laws, a business must :
- Be a retail firm with 56 or more employees globally, or
- Be a fast food restaurant with 56 or more employees globally and 20 or more employees in Emeryville.
These laws then apply to any nonexempt employee of such businesses in Emeryville.
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 should include the median number of hours per work week each quarter for a year, and whether the employee can expect to work on-call shifts.
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 Emeryville 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 more than 10 minutes before or after an employee’s scheduled shift without their consent within 14 days from the start of the work period. Consent must be 100% voluntary.
This includes situations such as:
- adding more than 10 minutes to a shift or
- changing the day, time or location of a shift by or
- requests to stay later than 10 minutes 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 minimise 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 Emeryville 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
Note: Deputy may still ask team members to consent to changes to the schedule that are 10 minutes or less in duration however, predictability premiums will only be applied if the shift change totals in excess of 10 minutes.
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 Emeryville, predictability pay is paid according to the following rules:
Amount of Notice of Schedule Change | Length of Shift Affected | Hours of Predictability Pay (at Employee's Regular Rate of Pay) |
Less than 14 days and more than 24 hours | Any | One hour |
Less than 24 hours | Change is a reduction or cancellation of hours | Lesser of: the number of hours of the scheduled shift or four hours |
Less than 24 hours | All other changes | One hour |
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 Emeryville Fair Workweek pay rate.
Right to rest (Clopening)
"Clopening" shifts are shifts where an employee works late one night and then works early the next morning.
Emeryville’s covered employees are required to have at least 11 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, which is 1.5 times their base rate for all hours worked less than 11 hours following the end of a previous shift.
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
Missed Meal breaks
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 duration 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.
How can Deputy help?
Deputy provides two pay rates for Emeryville, one with the meal break waiver included, one without. It is the employer's responsibility to update the pay rates for each employee.
For employees without the meal break waiver, Deputy will ask an attestation question after they have worked five or more hours in a shift, asking if they have received all of their meal breaks. If they answer that they did not receive their breaks, and did not clock in for the required number of breaks, a meal break premium will be attached to their timesheet automatically. If they answer that they did receive their breaks, no premium will be attached.
For employees with the meal break waiver, Deputy will ask an attestation question after they have worked more than 6 hours in a shift, asking if they have received all of their meal breaks. If they answer that they did not receive their breaks, and did not clock in for the required number of breaks, a meal break premium will be attached to their timesheet automatically. If they answer that they did receive their breaks, no premium will be attached.
For more information see Break Attestations.
Offer of Work to Existing Employees
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 should include:
- total hours of work being offered;
- the schedule of available shifts;
- whether those shifts will occur at the same time each week;
- the length of time the employer anticipates requiring coverage of the additional hours; and
- the process by which part-time employees may notify the employer of their desire to work the offered hours.
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 can 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 numerous reports within Deputy to provide to auditors.