U.S. Department of Labor To Begin Enforcing Federal Wage-and-Hour Laws

Well, for those of you that have been “keeping up” I have been preaching about the necessity of HR audits. Now it’s coming from the feds. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced that it will change dramatically how it regulates employers’ compliance with certain federal  laws. Within the next year, it will issue regulations requiring employers to take steps to ensure compliance with federal wage & hour, safety, and anti-discrimination laws. Their strategy is called, “Plan, Prevent, Protect.”

Let me explain what they mean. The DOL will focus on three components. The “Plan” component means that employers will be required to create plans and processes that assess and demonstrate compliance with federal laws. The DOL is considering requiring employers to work with employees in the development of these plans and, at the very least, employers will be obligated to distribute the plans to employees so that they can fully understand the plans and monitor their employers’ compliance. The “Prevent” component means that employers will be required to implement the  plans and demonstrate to employees that the plans are actually in use. The “Protect” component means that employers will be required to designate certain workers to be charged with implementing plans and evaluating their effectiveness.

Employers need to be prepared. I would recommend that employers begin by conducting workplace audits of company wage & hour policies and practices, specifically with regard to the classification of workers, audit your safety policies and practices (some of you have safety programs in place but may not be in compliance (IIPP)), and review all of your anti-discrimination policies and practices including harassment, discrimination, and retaliation (because California requires training (AB1825) many of you are probably already in compliance). The bigger issues will be federal wage & hour and safety laws compliance.

I will be creating an outline of the required plan and procedures when I have more information. In addition, I will be creating a seminar for managers on federal wage & hour compliance and work with some of our partner companies for the safety laws compliance portion of the plan. The times are changing. Let’s be proactive to prevent having to be reactive.