In the current job market, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, good employees are more valuable now than perhaps ever. Almost every one of my clients is looking to hire, and almost every one looking is complaining that that they “can’t find anyone good.” It’s a seller’s market, and…
Determining whether a worker should be classified as an employee or independent contractor has always been a challenging task that frustrates our clients. There are a variety of legal “tests” that are used in different contexts in order to make that determination. A worker can be considered an…
California already has one of the most generous and employee-friendly overtime laws in the country. Employees in California earn overtime anytime they work over 8 hours in a day OR 40 hours in a week. Overtime is paid at 1.5 times the employee’s regular “rate of pay.” Calculating…
As I blogged about here and here, California and San Francisco recently enacted new laws prohibiting employers from asking applicants about their prior “salary history.” California currently joins Delaware and New York City as the only other jurisdictions that currently prohibit all employers from asking about salary history…
Since its passage in 2004, California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) has been a weapon used by employees and their lawyers across California. PAGA allows one “aggrieved employee” to sue his/her employer in a representative capacity and to recover penalties and attorneys’ fees for technical violations of the California…
When U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law last month, everyone was focused on the corporate tax cuts and — especially here in California — the reduction of the deductions for mortgage interest, state income taxes, and local property taxes. But lurking…
Many Californians celebrated the arrival of 2018 standing for hours in long lines at their local pot dispensary. That’s because the 2016 law legalizing recreational marijuana in California — known as Proposition 64 or the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) — officially became effective on January 1,…
California law has not (yet) recognized weight as a protected category along with race, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, medical condition, and many others. However, more than 25 years ago, the California Supreme Court held that an overweight employee could qualify as a “disabled” under California’s Fair…
In June 2017, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the “Lactation in the Workplace Ordinance.” This was the nation’s first-ever law requiring employers to have a workplace lactation policy that ensures employees get lactation breaks and have access to a “lactation accommodation space.” This new ordinance, which…
Today I came across a short but interesting article from Harvard Business Review about how effective leaders get honest, critical feedback from their co-workers. The article’s author, Ron Carucci, argues that you don’t need to have a formal 360 evaluation system to get valuable feedback; in fact, the…