Illinois Labor Compliance
To stay compliant with regional labor requirements for restaurants, employers in Illinois must take specific steps to schedule teams correctly. 7shifts helps you manage these standards by providing automatic warnings for potential compliance fees directly in the schedule and reflecting incurred costs in your labor budget to help control operational expenses.
Things to know
- Access to labor compliance features may require an upgrade from your current 7shifts plan.
- The Labor Exceptions report is only available when using 7punches or a POS labor integration.
- Fair Workweek Chicago is required for companies in covered industries with 100+ employees worldwide. For restaurants, this applies to those with at least 30 locations and 250 employees globally. Only enable the Advanced Labor settings if your company qualifies.
- Fair Workweek Evanston is required for retail or restaurant companies with at least 30 locations and 200 employees worldwide. Only enable the Advanced Labor settings if your company qualifies.
Enable labor compliance
Admins can enable compliance settings at the company level to apply them to all locations by default.
If you need to set or customize these compliance options for specific locations, you can do so by navigating to the Locations settings for the relevant location and modifying the Labor & Compliance section there. Learn how to set Location-Level Settings here: Labor & Compliance Settings
- Log in to the 7shifts web app as an Admin.
- In the left navigation bar, head to Settings > Company Settings.
- Select the Labor & Compliance tab.
- Under Jurisdiction, select Illinois, Illinois - Chicago, or Illinois - Evanston.
- Review and set your specific overtime, break, and wage settings.
- Under the Advanced Labor section, select the compliance options according to your preferences.
- Click Save to complete these changes.
Note: To restore default Illinois rules and overtime settings, select Re-sync labor & compliance settings.
Jurisdiction of Chicago
Selecting Illinois - Chicago jurisdiction provides access to specific exceptions regarding rest periods and predictive scheduling.
Right to rest
Employees require a 10-hour rest period after a previous day's shift. A warning appears on the schedule if a shift falls within a rest period. If the employee punches in, a premium is paid equivalent to 1.25 times the employee's base rate for all hours worked within that rest period.
Predictive scheduling (Predictability pay)
Employers in Chicago must provide work schedules at least 14 days in advance. Premiums based on the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance are required if a published schedule is changed within that 14-day window.
- Employers owe one hour of predictability pay at the regular rate for adding hours or changing shift dates/times with at least 24 hours of notice.
- Employers owe 50% of the regular rate of pay for each hour not worked if they reduce or cancel a shift with at least 24 hours of notice.
- Employers owe the lesser of four hours of pay or the original shift value if they cancel or reduce a shift with less than 24 hours of notice.
Exemptions
Predictability Pay is not required for employee-requested changes such as shift swaps or time-off requests.
Important: Fair Workweek Chicago is only required for companies in covered industries with 100+ employees worldwide. For restaurants, this applies to those with at least 30 locations and 250 employees globally. Only enable the Advanced Labor settings if your company qualifies.
Jurisdiction of Evanston
Selecting Illinois - Evanston jurisdiction provides access to specific exceptions regarding rest periods and predictive scheduling.
Right to rest
Employees require a 11-hour rest period after a previous day's shift. A warning appears on the schedule if a shift falls within a rest period. If the employee punches in, a premium is paid equivalent to 1.5 times the employee's base rate for all hours worked within that rest period.
Predictive scheduling (Predictability pay)
Employers in Evanston must provide work schedules at least 14 days in advance. Evanston Fair Workweek Ordinance are required if a published schedule is changed within that 14-day window.
Employers owe one hour of predictability pay at the regular rate for adding hours or changing shift dates and times with at least 24 hours of notice.
Employers owe one hour of predictability pay at the regular rate for cancelling or reducing a shift with at least 24 hours of notice.
- Employers owe the lesser of four hours of pay or the original shift value if they cancel or reduce a shift with less than 24 hours of notice.
Exemptions
Predictability Pay is not required for employee-initiated changes such as voluntary time off or shift trades.
Important: Fair Workweek Evanston is only required for retail or restaurant companies with at least 30 locations and 200 employees worldwide. Only enable the Advanced Labor settings if your company qualifies.
View Exception Warnings
Exception warning will appear for Admins and Managers/Assistant Managers in the following areas:
To avoid/reduce exceptions, you will be warned about potential exceptions as you make changes to your schedule. Each time you create or make a change to a shift that causes an exception, a warning modal will appear indicating the type of exception and the associated cost.
Before publishing a schedule, if there are labor exceptions that will be incurred, you will see a summary showing the number of exceptions, the total cost, and details of each exception. Once published, the exceptions will be recorded in the report.
You will also see a warning when assigning shifts through the Shift Pool that could cause an exception:
On the Time Clocking page as an exception warning:
On a Punch Overview:
Next steps
After enabling these settings, you can view exception warnings directly on the schedule to monitor potential costs.