Wildfires continue to rage across Southern California, leveling entire neighborhoods, forcing evacuations for tens of thousands of people, and posing incredible hardship on businesses and their employees. Below are a few common scenarios employers should know about paying their California employees and maintaining compliance with wage and hour laws:
“Our office was closed for a few days because of the fires. Do we have to pay our employees for those days?”
Non-exempt (i.e., overtime-eligible) employees generally have to be paid only for hours they actually work. So, if a non-exempt employee cannot work because your office is closed—or because the employee cannot make it into the office because of natural disaster-related conditions—the wage and hour laws do not require you to pay the employee for non-working time. On the other hand, a non-exempt employee who performs work remotely (say, from home, from a temporary site, or from a coffee shop) is entitled to pay for the time worked.
An exception exists for salaried non-exempt employees, who may—depending on the terms of their agreement with the employer—expect to receive their full weekly salary regardless of how many hours they actually work that week.
Exempt employees (i.e., employees not entitled to overtime pay) generally receive their full salary for any week in which the office is closed for less than a full workweek. If your office is closed for an entire workweek, you can inform all employees of the closure and you...
The income tax department has initiated a nationwide verification operation targeting fraudulent claims of deductions and exemptions in I-T returns. This action follows the discovery of organized r...