It has been said that California has a style all its own. This is especially true in the area of employment law. With arguably the greatest amount of wages and hour laws on the books of any state, processing payroll and keeping in compliance with California requirements can be a complex situation. Issues involving overtime, mandatory sick leave, split shifts, call-backs, meals and meal periods, donning and doffing, travel time, local minimum wage and countless other potential snares and pitfalls await the unwary employer! Add in the changes made for 2018 and you can find yourself in a compliance nightmare.
But even California can sometimes follow the federal rules. This is especially true when it comes to the actual math needed to calculate overtime including the definition of the regular rate of pay, workweek and workday. California is, however, a sovereign state so it also has its own requirements for areas of wage and hour law that the federal does not address including paycheck stub requirements and posting regulations. And don’t forget the anti-theft wage law passed in the state. So the payroll professional processing payroll in California must be familiar with both the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the California Labor law and know when which one takes priority. With all these different factors to contend with when processing California payrolls the department must be very diligent for if it fails to comply or commits the tiniest infraction, serious penalties can and do occur.
