- What is a good faith estimate or regular schedule?
- How to set regular working hours
- Requesting regular schedule consent from employees
What is a good faith estimate or regular schedule?
Many regions that have Fair Workweek legislation require employers to provide a "good faith estimate" of their team members' intended working hours at the point of hire. For New York City Fair Workweek Fast Food, this is called a "regular schedule".
Managers can add this good faith estimate or regular schedule to each team member's profile in Deputy as their regular working hours. This will make it easier to schedule the team members for the hours that have been indicated for them when they agree to the role.
A good faith estimate or regular schedule can be entered into Deputy in one of two ways:
- as regular working hours by detailing the day and time of the shift and breaks that you agree the team member will work
- as total working hours by detailing the total number of hours a team member will work in a defined work period.
To decide which of these two methods you should use, please review the Fair Workweek requirements in your specific region.
How to set regular working hours
For this example, we will add a good faith estimate of the team member's intended work hours by configuring the regular working hours that the team member agreed to in his contract.
Open the employee profile of the team member you wish to edit and in the Employment tab, select Set a work period or click Edit.
Set the work period you would like to enter regular hours for. This may align with your business' scheduling or payroll cadence to be weekly or 2-weekly or perhaps monthly.
If all team members have the same work period you will only need to create a new work period once and then you will be able to choose it from the drop-down list for other team members.
Click on Add regular working hours
Complete the details of the team member's intended work hours including day of the week, start and end times for the shifts, break type and duration (break times are optional) as well as the area they will be working in. Click Add regular working hours.
In some Fair Workweek regions (San Francisco and San Jose) that's all you need to do and the regular working hours will be saved to the team member's profile ready to help you schedule your team in keeping with these hours.
In other Fair Workweek regions, you may be asked to complete one further step. This includes setting a date for this regular schedule to become effective and depending on the region you are in you may be asked to list a reason for the changes and include a message as shown below.
Once you have completed the required information, click Save.
The regular hours that have been set will be displayed along with an effective date, who updated them and the date they made the changes.
If you need to go back and change the regular working hour please complete the same process with a comment about the reason for the hours change.
Watch our video on how to set regular working hours to create for a good faith estimate for your employees.
Requesting regular schedule consent from employees
For organisations where New York City Fair Workweek - Fast Food legislation applies (and you have enabled New York City Fair Workweek - Fast Food consent in Location settings) you may find that adding your employee's regular working hours into Deputy triggers a request for the employee to accept the regular schedule.
Which conditions trigger a request for consent from the employee?
If a manager:
- adds a new regular schedule with an effective date of less than 14 days in advance
- changes a regular schedule with an effective date of less than 14 days in advance
- reduces the hours in a regular schedule by more than 15% of the baseline regular schedule hours. Note: Baseline regular schedule means the highest total hours contained in a fast food employee’s regular schedule within the previous 12 months, or the highest total hours contained in any subsequent reduced regular schedule to which such employee consented, which such employee requested, or which was made for just cause or a bona fide economic reason. Read more about baseline regular schedules from page 5 onwards of this FAQ.
then attempting to save those regular hours in the employee's profile will trigger a pop up where the manager can send the regular working hours to the employee for approval.
Examples
In the example below, the manager is trying to save regular working hours that have decreased working hours by more than 15%. The manager is asked to set an effective date, the reason for the changes and a message to the team member. Clicking Send for approval will send the team member an email so that the team member can review and accept or decline the new regular working hours.
It is also possible to save without requiring approval from the team member but you must complete the reason for the change first and be also aware that you may not be compliant with Fair Workweek if you do not obtain employee consent for this change.
In the example below, the manager is trying to save regular working hours that have an effective date of less than 14 days away. Clicking Send for approval will send the team member an email so that the team member can review and accept or decline the new regular working hours with the effective date.
It is also possible to save without requiring approval from the team member but you must complete the reason for the change first and be also aware that you may not be compliant with Fair Workweek if you do not obtain approval for this change.
Reason for changes
When a manager adds or changes regular working hours that trigger a need for consent from the employee they will be asked to select from three reasons for changes in working hours:
- Requested by employee
- Bona fide economic or just cause
- Other
The reason selected will NOT be sent to the employee, however, the text that the manager types in the message for employee field will be sent to the employee when seeking consent for the changes to working hours.
How do employees consent to regular working hours changes?
Once the manager has sent a request for the employee to consent to regular schedule changes that have been triggered by the above conditions, the employee will receive an email from Deputy informing them there are regular working hours that require confirmation. When the employee clicks on View, a browser will open where they can review the changes and Accept or Decline.
When the manager reviews the regular working hours in the employee's profile they can see that the date and time the employee accepted the change is displayed.
Which conditions do not trigger a request for consent?
If a manager:
- adds a new regular schedule with an effective date of more than 14 days in advance
- changes a regular schedule with an effective date of more than 14 days in advance
In the example below, the manager is changing the team member's regular working hours but they have not decreased by more than 15% and the effective date is more than 14 days away so no consent is required from the team member. Click Save to capture this change to the team member's regular working hours in Deputy.
Once you have set your team member's regular working hours you are ready to set up your schedule.