To remain compliant with the regional labor requirements for restaurants, employers in California must take certain measures to ensure they are scheduling in a compliant manner.
SKIP AHEAD TO:
Enabling Labor Compliance
Types of Exceptions
Missed Break Waivers
Exception Warnings
Automatically Dismiss Missed Meal Breaks
Employee Attestation
Custom Attestation
Reporting Pay
Exception Report
To enable Labor Compliance
1. Head to Settings > Company Settings > Labor & Compliance.
2. Under the Jurisdiction dropdown > choose California.
3. California labor compliance settings will automatically populate. You can choose to manually adjust the settings at the bottom of the page and remember to click 'Save.'
4. For accounts that select 'California' as their jurisdiction, the overtime calculations in 7shifts are automatically set to 'Regular Rate of Pay.'
Click here to learn more about the 'Regular Rate of Pay' option in your Overtime settings.
Regular rate of pay is calculated as a weighted average of all the shifts an employee has worked multiplied by the wage paid for each hour (from all Roles, across all Departments/Locations), divided by the total hours worked in a period. For example: if an employee worked 30 hours at $10, and 30 hours at $20, the regular rate of pay is $15/hour.
5. To re-sync your settings to California defaults (including the Overtime rules) click the 'Re-sync labor & compliance settings' button.
Types of Exceptions
Meal breaks are breaks of 30 minutes or more. Depending on the length of shift, 1 or 2 meal breaks may be required. An exception occurs when the required number of meal breaks are not taken and/or if Meal Break #1 is not started before the end of the 5th hour (4:59) of the shift. For each exception, an employee should be rewarded with 1 hour of pay at the regular rate of pay. 7shifts checks the time punch records to determine if the required breaks were taken on each shift. For more details please review the State of California website.
Rest Breaks are breaks of at least 10 consecutive minutes and must be paid breaks. Depending on the length of shift, 1-4 rest breaks may be required. A break that was counted as a Meal Break, CANNOT also be counted as a Rest Break. An exception occurs when the required number of Rest Breaks are not taken. For each exception, an employee should be rewarded with 1 hour of pay at the regular rate of pay. For more details please review the State of California website.
An exception occurs if an employee has two punches, in the same day, separated by 60 minutes or more. For each exception, an employee is entitled to one hour of premium pay at the rate of the minimum wage. This premium pay can be offset if the employee's wage is higher than the minimum wage. For more details please review the State of California website.
Missed Break Waivers
If an Employee has a missed Meal Break waiver on file, this will be shown in the punch modal. You can indicate in an Employee's profile whether they have signed a waiver for ' 6hrs & out' and '10hrs & out'.
Dismissing a Rest Break can not be done using a waiver, and must use Employee Attestation each time a break is missed.
1. To enable this feature, go to Company Settings > Labor & Compliance > enable 'Meal Breaks' > enable waivers.
2. Then, navigate to the Team > Employee profile > Employment tab to indicate whether that Employee has signed their waiver:
These indications are then shown in the punch edit modal for that Employee:
Skip to here for more information on dismissing exception warnings for missed breaks.
Exception Warnings
To avoid or reduce labor exceptions you will be warned about potential exceptions as you make changes to your schedule. Each time you make a change to a shift that may cause one or more exceptions, a warning will appear indicating the type of exception and the associated cost.
Before publishing a schedule, you will see a warning summary showing the number of exceptions, the total cost, and details of each exception.
You will also see a warning when assigning shifts through the Shift Pool that may cause an exception.
Exceptions for missed breaks and split shifts will show on the left side of the punch.
If an Employee misses a Meal Break or a Rest Break, these exceptions can be dismissed from within the punch modal.
To dismiss the missed break exceptions based on Employee waivers, click on the break and then 'Dismiss Exception'.
The exception warning will then be faded /ignored. You can restore the exception by clicking on it again, then 'Restore Exception'.
Automatically Dismiss Missed Meal Breaks
Reduce the time needed to perform payroll with automated meal break warnings! If an Employee misses their meal break, it will automatically be dismissed on your Time Clocking page.
⚠️ This feature is only available for those using 7punches and may require an upgrade from your current plan.
⚠️ Only Admins can access Company Settings to enable this feature.
⚠️ Assistant Managers/Managers with permissions can access this feature. These include: 'Can manage punches', 'can manage exceptions', 'can add employees', and 'can edit employees'.
How to Enable 'Automatically Dismiss Missed Meal Breaks'
To enable 'Automatically Dismiss Missed Meal Breaks", the following settings must first be enabled in Settings > Company Settings > Labor & Compliance > see section Advanced Labor:
- Attestation
- Meal Break Waivers
- In the left navigation bar, select Settings > Company Settings. Once on the Company Settings page, select Labor & Compliance
- Under the section Advanced Labor > checkmark Automatically dismiss missed meal breaks to enable it:
- Click Save to complete these changes
- In the left navigation bar, select Team > Employees > search for an Employee and click on their name to expand it. Once on the Employee profile, select Employment on the left-hand menu.
- Checkmark the waiver(s) on file that will apply to the Employee:
- Click Save to complete these changes
How to 'Revert Auto-dismissed Meal Breaks'
- In the left navigation bar, click on the Time Clocking tab and select a pay period. Once the pay period has expanded, click on the pencil icon
next to the punch you would like to edit.
- In the Punch Overview, click on Auto-dismissed meal break:
- Click Revert auto-dismissed meal break to accept the warning:
- Click Save to complete these changes
When you're ready to review this information, you can navigate to your Punch Audit Report, set your filters, and click 'Get Report'.
Automatically dismissed meal breaks' will appear for each Employee within the specified date range as:
If a punch has been edited, this will render the auto-dismissed meal break as obsolete, and it will be recorded in the report as :
Employee Attestation
Through 7punches, Employee Attestation will require Employees to confirm whether they:
- Took their breaks in accordance with the policy
- Had the opportunity to take all of their breaks, but freely chose not to
- Were prevented from taking their breaks
Attestation occurs on employee punch out. This data will be available in the Labor Exceptions report, accessible to Managers and Admins.
To enable Employee Attestation:
1. Go to Settings > Labor & Compliance > select Jurisdiction (California)
2. Scroll further down, select 'Attestation', and click 'Save'.
In the 'Policy Link' field, there is the option to directly link your company's break policy so your employees can access it on the Attestation modal when they punch out.
On Employee Punch-out
Once an Employee punches out, they will be prompted to attest to their breaks. They can toggle between languages (English and Spanish) from the dropdown in the top right corner:
Attestation Customization:
Admins and Managers will have the option to Customize Attestation fields:
- Choosing the Attestation question
- Choosing the answers to the Attestation question
- Number of Attestation answers (2 or 3)
- Language
To enable Custom Attestation:
1. Go to Settings > Company Settings > Labor & Compliance.
2. In the Jurisdiction dropdown > select 'California.'
3. Check the option 'Attestation' further down.
4. Click on 'Customize Attestation.'
5. Under each tab, enter the applicable details for your custom questions and responses.
6. Remember to click 'Save.'
Reporting Pay
Reporting Pay is a form of wages that compensates employees who are scheduled to report to work and are sent home before the conclusion of their scheduled shift. These employees are entitled to be paid for unworked hours.
In California, employees who worked half or less than half of their scheduled shift are entitled to be paid for half of their scheduled shift’s hours (at their regular rate of pay). Employees must be paid no less than two hours and no more than four hours.
For example: If an employee is scheduled for an 8-hour shift and works 4 hours or less, they are entitled to 4 hours of pay. If an employee is scheduled for a 3-hour shift and works 1.5 hours or less, they are entitled to 2 hours of pay.
⚠️ Reporting pay may require an upgrade from your current plan.
⚠️ Managers/Assistant Managers require the following permissions to have visibility on this feature: ‘Can manage time punches’, ‘Can manage exceptions’, and ‘Can run reports’.
⚠️ Reporting pay hours do not contribute to the calculation of hours worked, such as overtime hours.
⚠️ If rounding rules have been enabled for 7punches, this may affect shifts eligible for Reporting Pay and the costs associated.
To enable Reporting Pay
- Login as an Admin.
- In the left navigation bar, select Settings > Company Settings. Once on the Company Settings page, select the 'Labor & Compliance' tab:
- Under the section 'Advanced Labor', enable 'Reporting Pay':
- Be sure to hit 'Save' to complete these changes!
1. On the Time Clocking page as an exception warning.
2. On a Punch Overview.ok
Admins and Managers/Assistant Managers (with permissions) can click on the warning to further dismiss/restore an exception warning:
3. The Worked Hours and Wages Report.
Similarly, you can export the report directly from a closed timesheet:
4. The Labor Exceptions Report.
5. The Punch Audit Report, when the exception has been dismissed.
Exceptions Report
- Toast
- Micros 3700
- Aloha
- Squirrel
- Heartland Restaurant
- Brink
1. Go to Reports > Labor Exceptions.
2. Select the 'Date Range' and 'Location' and click 'Get Report.'
Included in the report
- Employee who incurred the exception
- Location where the exception took place
- Date of the exception
- Shift length
- Exception type
- Attestation response
- Exception cost
- Waivers on file