Washington Labor Compliance
To remain compliant with the regional labor requirements for restaurants, employers in Washington must take certain measures to ensure they are scheduling in a compliant manner.
In this article, you'll learn how to enable Washington labor compliance in 7shifts, understand the types of labor exceptions, and run reports to help you stay compliant with state regulations.
Prerequisites
⚠️ Access to this feature may require an upgrade from your current plan.
⚠️ The Labor Exceptions report is only available with 7punches or a POS labor integration.
Enable Labor Compliance
- Log in as an Admin on the web app.
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In the left navigation bar, head to Settings (or, hover over your profile photo) > Company Settings.
Tip: Setting your Advanced Labor Rules here at the Company level will apply these settings to your entire Company (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
- Select the Labor & Compliance tab.
- Under Jurisdiction, select Washington or Washington - Seattle
- Review and set your overtime, break, custom break, and wages & pay settings.
- Under the Advanced Labor section, Washington - Seattle labor compliance settings will automatically populate as per the Jurisdiction set earlier. Checkmark the options according to your preferences:
- Be sure to hit Save to complete these changes!
- To restore default Washington (including Overtime rules), click Re-sync labor & compliance settings:
Jurisdiction of Seattle, WA
By selecting the jurisdictions of Washington - Seattle, you would have access to these jurisdiction-specific exceptions:
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 and a premium is paid equivalent to 1.5 times the employee's base rate for all hours worked within the rest period if the employee punches in.
Schedule change advanced notice
In Seattle, you must provide employees with their work schedules at least 14 days in advance. If an employer changes a published schedule within that 14-day window, premiums based on the Seattle Secure Scheduling Ordinance may be required:
Changes that will incur an Exception warning:
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Changes adding hours or shifting times: The employee is owed one hour of pay at their regular rate if the employer:
Adds hours to a scheduled shift.
Changes the date of a shift.
Changes the start or end time of a shift.
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Changes resulting in lost ho: The employee is owed 50% (0.5x) of their regular rate of pay for each hour not worked if the employer:
Sends an employee home early from a scheduled shift.
Subtracts hours from a shift.
Cancels a scheduled shift.
On-call shifts not worked: The employee is owed 50% (0.5x) of their regular rate of pay for the scheduled on-call hours if an employee is required to be on-call but is not called into work.
Exemptions
Predictability Pay is not required in the following scenario:
Employee-Requested Changes: Employees can request changes to their own schedules (such as shift swaps or time-off requests) without incurring premium pay for the employer.
Important: Fair Workweek Seattle is only required for companies with 500 or more employees worldwide. Only enable this exception 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: