 2022 COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave Poster and Resources
BY STEPHEN FIEGEL, ESQ. - Carmichael, CA The Labor Commissioner has published a required workplace poster and FAQs on 2022 COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave. The new law went into effect on February 19 for employers with 26 or more employees. The goal of the law is to ensure workers in California know their rights and employers have the resources they need to comply with the state’s labor laws. The resources available include:
The Labor Commissioner’s Office in 2020 launched an interdisciplinary outreach campaign, “Reaching Every Californian.” The campaign amplifies basic protections and builds pathways to affected populations so workers and employers understand legal protections and obligations, and the Labor Commissioner’s enforcement procedures. Californians can follow the Labor Commissioner on Facebook and Twitter. Media Contact: Communications@dir.ca.gov, (510) 286-1161 Employers with Questions on Requirements May Contact: MakeItFair@dir.ca.gov If you have any questions regarding this new requirement, please check out my website at www.employment-law.net or call me for a FREE consultation at (916) 333-4653.
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 :When you run your own business, you’re the person deciding on the direction. You’re in control of start dates and marketing promos. You’re the one who must hold yourself back from the shiny object syndrome.
And yet, so many of us fail on that last one and it’s easy to understand why. Open your social media feeds or search on the internet for business advice and you’ll find dozens of articles that tell you what you need to be doing for your business this year—things you need to implement, apps you need to download, widgets needed on your website, and a host of other projects you would be remiss not to implement immediately. And they all sound so wonderful. Things your audience will love, will drive more sales, help you become better known. But if you take off in hot pursuit of them all, you won’t accomplish any of them. Pick a Goal, Pick a Time frame: Yes, there may be many things you need or want to do for your business, but you have a better chance of completing them if you concentrate on 1-3 goals at a time. If you have more than three things you want to institute in your business this year, you can still do them after you complete the first three. Some professionals have new goals each month, quarter, or every six months. Treat business goal setting the way you do eating. Don’t pile mounds on your plate just because it looks delicious. Take one helping first and when you’re finished with that, come back for more. Cluster Your Goals: If you have an auspicious agenda this year, cluster the goals that naturally fit together. For instance, if your goals are more followers on social media, being consistent in your blog posting, and implementing a new training program for your employees, know that the first two can easily be stitched together as good blog content gives you something valuable to post to social media (and thus, get more followers). The third goal is better as a standalone. Select a Quarter for New Launches: My writing business has two facets—business marketing writing and fiction writing. My business writing trumps my fiction writing because it pays the bills. But my fiction will never have a chance to pay the bills if I don’t give it the attention it needs to take off. The same may be true for an area of your business. For instance, perhaps you own a food truck, and you’ve considered adding a brick-and-mortar location. If those thoughts are just thoughts, your café will never take shape. You must open to see if your business idea will work. But there’s a lot of planning involved before you can do so. Pick a quarter (or season or even a month) and dedicate your free time during that period to work the pieces you need to get closer to your launch goal. Which brings us to… Schedule Time and Purpose: It’s great to use free time to explore ideas for your business but your free time is likely limited, and it can be frustrating to save something for your free time only to be discouraged when your free time is usurped by something else. That’s why you also need to set aside time in your schedule each week for goal attainment. This is not an hour set aside to think about your idea, although that is a necessary thing early on. But if you want to be successful in meeting your goal, you need to map out what it will take and break that up into smaller, attainable pieces that you can schedule. In our restaurant example, a task might be listing all the restaurants in an area of town you’re considering for your café. It might be reaching out to the local chamber to find out what development projects are in the works. Whatever you assign for this time should be measurable. At the end of your time block you should know whether you accomplished it or not. If your goal was thinking about opening your restaurant, you may have done that but there is no end point. You could “think” about it for the next decade. However, if your task was to call three landlords for potential spots, you know definitively whether that was completed or not. This year don’t try to do it all. Pick 1-3 things that will advance your business and map out how you will get there. Then assign time to make it happen. We all get excited about ideas, but the real excitement should lie in your ability to accomplish them. That starts with making the most important ones a priority. Just like in your personal life, you make things a priority by giving them your undivided attention. Christina R. Metcalf (formerly Green) is a marketer who enjoys using the power of story and refuses to believe meaningful copy can be written by bots. She helps chamber and small business professionals find the right words when they don’t have the time or interest to do so. Christina hates exclamation points and loves road trips. Say hi on Twitter or reach out on Facebook.  IS IT ILLEGAL TO PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES IN CASH?
BY STEPHEN FIEGEL, ESQ. AS A RULE, IT IS NOT ILLEGAL FOR CALIFORNIA EMPLOYERS TO PAY EMPLOYEES IN CASH. IT MAY, HOWEVER, COMPLICATE THE PROCESS OF PAYING ACCURATE PAYROLL TAXES. CALIFORNIA LAW REQUIRES THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON ALL EMPLOYEE ITEMIZED PAY STATEMENTS: GROSS WAGES EARNED; TOTAL HOURS WORKED (NOT FOR SALARIED EMPLOYEES); PIECE RATE EARNED (IF APPLICABLE); ALL DEDUCTIONS; NET WAGES EARNED; PAY PERIOD; NAME OF EMPLOYEE AND LAST FOUR DIGITS OF SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER; NAME AND ADDRESS OF EMPLOYER; AND APPLICABLE HOURLY RATES. MOREOVER, FAILURE TO REPORT WAGES TO ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY IS ILLEGAL. THEREFORE, BY PAYING EMPLOYEES “UNDER THE TABLE,” EMPLOYERS EFFECTIVELY AVOIDING PAYING REQUIRED TAXES. EMPLOYERS ARE REQUIRED TO WITHHOLD FROM EMPLOYEE'S CASH PAYMENTS AND PAY THEIR SHARE FOR THE FOLLOWING: SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE (FICA); STATE AND FEDERAL INCOME TAXES; UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (FUTA); STATE DISABILITY INSURANCE (SDI); STATE UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (SUI); WORKERS COMPENSATION; OVERTIME COMPENSATION; AND SOME OTHER EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS. EMPLOYERS THAT FAIL TO PAY THE REQUIRED WITHHOLDINGS MAY RESULT IN SEVERAL PENALTIES. FEDERAL TAX PENALTIES INCLUDE REQUIRING EMPLOYERS TO PAY ALL AN EMPLOYEE’S UNPAID LIABILITIES. ADDITIONALLY, CRIMINAL PROSECUTION MAY OCCUR. EMPLOYERS RISK INVESTIGATION BY THE IRS. TAX EVASION DEFENDANTS ARE KNOWN TO SERVE TIME FOR THEIR OFFENSES. IN SUMMARY, IF AN EMPLOYER DECIDES TO TAKE ON THE RISK OF PAYING EMPLOYEES IN CASH, THEY MUST COMPLY WITH ALL EMPLOYERS’ REQUIREMENTS IN CALIFORNIA. EMPLOYERS MUST MAINTAIN ACCURATE RECORDS, AS PAYING EMPLOYEES WITH CASH ELIMINATES A PAPER TRAIL. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS ISSUE OR ANY OTHER EMPLOYMENT-RELATED MATTER, PLEASE CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT WWW.EMPLOYMENT-LAW.NET OR CALL ME FOR A FREE CONSULTATION AT (916) 333-4653.  The results of a recent survey commissioned by GoDaddy and conducted by OnePoll of 2,000 Americans and what they want from small business going forward, shouldn’t surprise business owners. But if you’ve been thinking that some of the things you did for safety purposes can be phased out once we start beating the numbers on this virus, you may be in for a rude awakening.
Just like our kids on summer vacation, our customers have gotten used to a certain way of life and they expect businesses to help them maintain it. First, customers appreciated how most small businesses changed their offerings and ways of doing business with the pandemic. Here are the eight things that are most important to buyers:
Not surprisingly, 68% of respondents said they would shop from small local stores more often if they could purchase items online. What Do the Results Mean for Small Business? There’s very little interpretation needed here. Consumers are in love with convenience methods. You may have originally implemented these conveniences for safety protocol, but it turns out many of us like having food and items brought to our cars. We love tapping credit cards at payment terminals and we like ordering things in our PJs and having them delivered. Wise businesses have likely already invested in these things, but they may have done it with the idea that these protocols would be temporary. Knowing this is what many customers prefer may have small businesses everywhere rethinking a few things. These preferences may change:
Some people still enjoy getting out of the house. Others love the instant availability of purchasing things in-store. Finally, it’s important to note that all this desire for easy ways to shop from home is predicated on several factors including the ability for businesses to find employees, navigate the supply chain issues (so availability can still be used as a unique value proposition over waiting for an online delivery), and other side effects of the pandemic. Will you continue these customer favorites once we come out on the other side of this pandemic or will you go back to how you used to do things years ago? Christina R. Metcalf (formerly Green) is a marketer who enjoys using the power of story and refuses to believe meaningful copy can be written by bots. She helps chamber and small business professionals find the right words when they don’t have the time or interest to do so. Christina hates exclamation points and loves road trips. Say hi on Twitter or reach out on Facebook.  How do you like to work? Are you a speed or precision person? Do you like many small projects or one big, long one that you can dig into?
No, you’re not in the middle of a recruitment fair. These are simply questions that most self-aware professionals should know about themselves and about their teams. My go-to answer used to be, “I can do either.” But that’s not really an answer, is it? What’s my preference? What do I excel in? After years of running my own business, I’ve come to realize that I like most of my days filled with many smaller projects, with a large one in the background that I can explore about once a week. Because I like to go fast. What about you and your business? An Ode to Speed I am always looking for more efficient ways to do things. Maybe you are too. There are tons of productivity tools, suggestions on how to streamline operations, and the like. If you love efficiency, you are probably a mass consumer of this type of content. You likely fill your time in the car with podcasts and maximize learning or working opportunities whenever possible. You also either fall asleep the minute you turn off the light or you’re up for hours considering new ideas and solutions. If you work for someone else, they likely pass you the ball often because they know you’ll get it done on time but… There’s something speed demons often sacrifice and that’s effectiveness. That’s not to say they aren’t effective at their jobs. But as they develop a reputation for getting things done, those around them pile on more. After all, it’s fun to watch kind of like those strongest man contests where they sport truck tires around their arm as if they were bangle bracelets. Get It Done Speed allows for singular focus. Efficient people know what tasks can be performed when. If they have a few minutes in their schedule, they know how to use them. Effective people, on the other hand, allow themselves to take a step back. To make decisions about what tasks will advance their ultimate goals and what will detract from them. They weigh everything against what they want to accomplish, and they say “no” often. They would rather have a moment doing nothing than cramming it full of busy work. Effective people are not the most efficient. They are not the people you hand something to when it needs to be completed ASAP. They probably wouldn’t put up with you dumping things on them anyway. They make deliberate decisions. Choose Your Way As a business owner or employee, there are times to concentrate on efficiency and there are times to gear your operation to effectiveness. If you are one or the other all the time, you will find yourself struggling either with burn out or missed deadlines. Ask yourself if this week you moved the marker toward your goals be being deliberate in what you were trying to accomplish, or did you break the speed barrier and astound audiences everywhere? Only you know which of these is the most important for your business this week, this month, this year. But you must recognize the differences between the two to realize what you need when in order to succeed. Christina R. Metcalf (formerly Green) is a marketer who enjoys using the power of story and refuses to believe meaningful copy can be written by bots. She helps chamber and small business professionals find the right words when they don’t have the time or interest to do so. Christina hates exclamation points and loves road trips. Say hi on Twitter or reach out on Facebook. |
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