Understanding California’s On-Call Pay Laws

As a marketer, you need to stay in the know about a lot of different topics from marketing trends and strategies to legal matters that can potentially affect a business and its clients. Whether your brand is in the hospitality industry, practice areas such as personal injury or property insurance, there are legal matters everywhere and the savvy marketer finds a way to leverage this information into each and every campaign. The newest legal matter on the market? The recent changes to California’s on-call pay laws.

What is On-Call Pay? In California, many businesses are required to compensate employees when they are required to hold the hours or be on-call during non-working hours. This is known as on-call pay. So say you’re a restaurant owner and you’re a manager is required to hold the phones during a shift to receive calls from employees who are on-call for the next shift, your manager is entitled to on-call pay for any hours they are required to hold the phones. Meaning, you will have to pay them for any time in which they would otherwise not have to be paid if it were not for the on-call requirements.

Why is On-Call Pay Important? This is important because you can not have employees hold on-call time outside of their normal paid hours without compensating them. For example, say your restaurant “closes” at 2 a.m. and you want to implement a new “closing shift” to have a manager there to ensure the restaurant shuts down and all employees are out by that time. This will require you to schedule a manager to work at 10 p.m. on a night that you will not be busy and perhaps your restaurant is closed. If you put a manager on-call for this closing shift, you will be required to compensate them from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. regardless of whether you call them into work and the nature of the tasks you want them to perform. If you call them in when they are on-call for the closing shift, you need to pay them for actual hours worked. If you decide you don’t need them anymore at 12 a.m., you will not need to pay them, but to be safe, you should pay them at least two hours of wages, for the inconvenience.

How Did California’s On-Call Pay Laws Change? This is an important development for employers; however, they are “safe” from the risk of inadvertently violating the law, they will need to pay their employees a minimum of two hours of wages for the time they essentially “held”. If the employee holds for less than two hours, then they get whatever was actually held. Whereas before, if the employer did not need the employee at all they would not need to pay anything.

What Effect Do California’s On-Call Pay Laws Have on These Campaigns? In terms of your campaigns, what does this mean for you? The legal matters always seem to get lost. However, they are essential to marketers-and when they change, this is where you can pivot your strategy to your advantage. For example, you can create promotional content such as infographics, blog articles, and checklists. You can promote this on social media, on your website, in newsletters, and via email. Shaparak Marketing can help you create a whole new campaign to help promote the new legal matter in your favor. With Shaparak Marketing, we ensure our clients never fail to keep up with legal matters. We make sure that no matter how small the changes seem, you will never be in violation of the many laws, rules, and regulations that lurk around every corner. To learn more about what we can do for your brand, contact us now.