Here’s What You Need to Know About Oregon’s Fair Workweek Rules
/
Fair workweek or predictive scheduling laws have been coming into force nationwide. The movement aims to protect shift workers from unfair scheduling practices.
With complex rules and hefty fines for violations, it’s a struggle for restaurant and fast-food operators to keep up. Especially those operating in multiple cities, as the laws differ from state to state.
In Oregon, the law applies to hospitality and food service providers with 500 or more employees.
Oregon was the first state to enact fair workweek legislation. According to the law, Oregon’s Bureau of Labor can issue fines from $500 to $1,000 for violations as well as civil penalties of $2,000 for any employer found to be coercing employees into asking to be added to the standby list for on-call shifts.
The authorities showed they weren’t afraid to wield this power when they fined Portland restaurant Park Kitchen $580,000 for practising tip-pooling against 41 former employees.
For operators affected by the rules, it’s important to stay on top of the paperwork. But restaurant schedules are difficult enough to plan at the best of times. Having to take complicated new rules into account is a nightmare for restaurant managers.
At Harri, we have developed tools to help. Harri’s smart scheduling tools have specific features built-in to help managers proactively deal with the rules, mitigating risks throughout the business and enabling all departments to work together to make fairer schedules and avoid penalties.
The result is an improvement in efficiency and morale, managers with one less thing to worry about, and a boost to your bottom line.
How does this work? First, let’s take a look at the specific laws for operators in Oregon. Then we’ll go through the key features of the Harri system and how they help to protect your business.
Regulations and Penalties for Oregon
Good Faith Estimate
Good Faith Estimates give employees advance knowledge of when and where they are expected to work. Employers must do their best to anticipate their requirements for the employee ahead of time. If any changes need to be made later, the estimate must be revised.
The law for Oregon says that, at the time of hire, employees must be given an estimate of the median hours they are expected to work for the month. It must explain the details of the voluntary standby list.
Voluntary Standby List
Employers may maintain voluntary standby lists of employees who are willing to work additional hours due to unanticipated customer needs or unexpected absences. The employees must request or agree in writing to be on the list and must be given all the relevant information. Employees on the list are not entitled to compensation for work schedule changes.
The inclusion of voluntary standby lists offers employers more flexibility, preventing them having to over-staff just in case demand is greater than expected.
Right to Rest
Right to Rest laws are designed to discourage the scheduling of “clopenings”, when an employee is assigned to consecutive closing and opening shifts and therefore doesn’t have enough time to get home and rest between shifts. Employees are due compensation for working these shifts, so it’s in the employer’s interests to avoid scheduling them.
The Oregon rules state that unless the employee gives explicit consent, employers cannot schedule them to work two shifts over two days when the first shift ends the day and when there are less than 10 hours between shifts.
If an employee works during these rest periods, the employer must compensate them for each hour, or portion of an hour, worked at 1.5x the employee’s regular rate of pay.
Advanced Notice on Scheduling
Advance Notice rules aim at preventing shift workers from being unable to plan ahead as a result of getting schedules late. The Oregon rules say that employees must be given the schedules at least seven days in advance of the first workday of that schedule (increasing to 14 days in July 2020). And that work schedules must be posted in a conspicuous and accessible location.
Changes to Work Schedules
Along the same lines, there are rules in place to prevent last-minute changes to schedules so workers aren’t left out of pocket. If the employer requests changes to the written work schedule, they must provide timely notice of the change. Employees may decline any work shifts not included in the written work schedule.
If the employer changes a written schedule without advance notice of at least seven days (14 days from July 1, 2020) prior to the beginning of the workweek in which the change occurs, the employer is required to pay the employee an additional hour of pay in addition to regular wages earned under the following conditions:
If the employer:
adds more than 30 minutes to the work shift.
changes the date or start and end time with no loss of hours.
schedules the employee for an additional work shift or on-call shift.
Employees may request in writing to work additional shifts or on-call work shifts any time after the notice is given.
Right to Input into Work Schedule
Employees may suggest changes to the work schedule and may request not to be scheduled for work shifts during certain times or at certain locations. Employers are not allowed to retaliate against employees for making such requests, however, they are not necessarily required to accept them either.
How Can Harri’s Intelligent Scheduling Help Your Business?
The rules surrounding Fair Workweek laws, in Oregon and across the nation, are lengthy and complex. The last thing busy restaurant managers need is even more stress with when dealing with the balancing act that is scheduling.
That’s why we’ve created a workaround. A solution that will not only relieve your managers of the stress of being responsible for legal action and fines, but will also provide more flexible and fairer schedules to your shift workers.
Harri automatically applies the local laws in real-time as your managers are creating schedules, encouraging them to provide schedules on-time and minimize violations.
Here’s a rundown of the main features in more detail.
Good Faith Estimate Support
Harri’s smart scheduling tools provide support specifically for dealing with the requirement for a Good Faith Estimate during onboarding.
The system pulls the relevant data on an employee together into a Good Faith Estimate document that managers can review and provide to the new hire. The document gives the new hires a clear schedule in accordance with the local laws, for Oregon or wherever else in the country they are.
The whole onboarding process is paperless. The document is sent to the new hire for review and e-signature. This avoids lengthy email chains and printing and scanning documents, freeing up managers to concentrate on other areas of the business.
Direct Shift Swaps Between Employees
Allowing employees to easily swap shifts between themselves is a good method of filling last-minute gaps in the schedule. As voluntary swaps between employees don’t incur any penalties for the employer.
Harri’s Hot Fill system is designed to make it as easy and efficient as possible for employees to exchange shifts. The peer-to-peer system allows managers to oversee and manage shift swaps without any direct involvement.
Hot Fill - “Uber for your employees”
Here is the process:
If an employee is unable to make it to work, they release the shift.
Other employees have previously indicated that they are available should a shift be released on that day. Note, they are not on-call.
The system sends an alert to these employees via SMS and push notification.
The first employee to respond is assigned the shift.
The manager on duty is automatically alerted to the employee’s estimated arrival time and distance from work.
Calculation of Right to Rest Compensation Payment
Harri helps managers reduce the number of “clopenings” by alerting them when they add one to the schedule. This helps them avoid the associated penalties, as much as possible.
Manager Alert for Penalties Related to Schedule Changes
Giving managers as much data as possible is one of the most effective ways to help them keep scheduling costs to a minimum. With Harri, managers can define the compensation rules for changes after the advance notice period.
The amount of premium pay due for shift changes is indicated on the schedule itself in real-time and is also included in the total wage cost calculations. This keeps managers aware of the cost impact of schedule changes so that they can proactively make the right decisions.
Predictive Scheduling Premium Reports
Predictive scheduling isn’t only about making schedules, but also about analyzing the data to see what can be improved in the future. Harri compiles detailed predictive scheduling reports that managers can easily access and scrutinize. The premium payments resulting from schedule changes are laid bare so that decisions can be made on company-wide scheduling policy to avoid future fines.
Protect Your Business and Empower Your Managers Today
Predictive scheduling rules are yet another worry that could be keeping restaurant operators up at night in an already tough industry. But with the help of some carefully crafted software, you can turn this policy shift into a positive for your business.
Get your managers united behind the system and show them that with the help of these smart tools, they can save time and stress while delivering more flexible, smarter and fairer schedules to their teams.
Challenge your managers to use these cutting-edge solutions to get the most from their teams for a happier, more efficient workplace, and a boost to the bottom line. To find out more about how Harri can help you cope with Oregon’s fair workweek legislation, get started with the smart scheduling tools.