Businesses have a legal obligation to observe federal and state laws guaranteeing nursing mothers the right to reasonable lactation accommodations. Knowing your business’ legal requirements regarding lactation accommodation can help you prevent expensive lawsuits- and may even prove advantageous from a human resources perspective.

Let’s take a look at how federal and California laws differ.

The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act

The Reasonable Break Time for Nursing Mothers Act is an amendment to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) requiring employers with more than 50 workers to provide reasonable accommodations for mothers who need to pump or express milk for their infant child. Under the FSLA employers must:

• Accommodate a nursing mother’s needs for up to a year after the infant’s birth.
• Provide a convenient location- other than a bathroom- in close proximity to the employee’s workspace.
• Ensure lactation space is private and free from intrusion, which can include an employee’s office or workspace if all conditions are met.
• Provide unpaid breaks only to hourly, nonexempt employees. These breaks should occur during the regularly scheduled meal or rest periods; however, employers are required to provide additional unpaid breaks when necessary.

There are two exceptions to this federal mandate. The first applies to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees in that they do not have to provide accommodations if doing so would cause undue financial hardship given the size, resources, and structure of their business. The second applies to both small and large companies with more than 50 employees; if pumping would cause a massive disturbance to a business’ operations, employers do not have to provide pumping space. Minor inconveniences do not qualify as serious disruptions to operations.

California lactation accommodation mandates

Depending on the state your business is located, you may have to observe stricter lactation accommodation rules. In 2002, California enacted Labor Code Section 1030 mandating all businesses to provide lactation accommodation to nursing mothers. Though similar to the FSLA, the California requirements differ in a few of ways:

• California law applies to all businesses regardless of their size.
• Employers must provide accommodations for as long as the mother decides to continue nursing, not just for a year after birth.
• Both exempt and nonexempt workers must be given access to accommodations.

Failure to comply with California lactation accommodation laws can result in the Labor Commissioner’s Bureau of Field Enforcement (BOFE) issuing a civil citation of $100.00 for each violation. Employers may also be subject to reimbursing mothers for lost wages if they had to miss work to pump because adequate space and time were not provided.

Furthermore, nursing mothers’ rights are protected under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), which classifies refusal to provide pumping arrangements as a form of sex-based discrimination. Under this law, employees can file claims suing for lost wages and emotional distress.

Employers can benefit too!

The benefits of breastfeeding are highly touted by the American Academy for Pediatrics and most of the medical community. So much so, there’s a nationwide movement demanding work environments conducive to nursing. Breastfeeding is shown to reduce illness and certain disease risks in children and reduce the likelihood of postpartum depression in mothers. Some studies have even shown nursing improves cognitive development in children.

Providing lactation accommodations has a positive butterfly effect on businesses too. When mothers are provided better pumping conditions at work, absences fall and productivity rises as work-family conflict and stress drops. Employers offering healthcare benefits may also see decreased insurance costs as nursing promotes health in both mother and baby.

If you own a business and are interested in implementing a lactation accommodation policy in compliance with federal and state law, contact our consultants at ExpertHR! We can provide human resource services at a fraction of the cost of an in-house department.

The unemployment rate has sunk quite a bit since the Great Recession’s 10 percent peak in October 2009. As of March 2017, the unemployment rate has dipped below expectations to 4.5 percent. That’s great news for the economy; however, it poses a challenge to companies looking to fill positions with top talent as the available pool of potential workers shrinks.

The costs associated with high employee turnover rates are also a hurdle to consider. Some studies show replacing a salaried worker could cost upwards of 9 months of their salary, while others suggest that figure is as high as two times their annual income, especially when replacing a high-level or executive employee.

So, how do companies retain top talent to avoid high turnover costs and competing with other companies for limited labor resources? Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are several ways, monetary and cultural, a company can make their employees happier- and more loyal.

1. Consider customizing your benefits packages to meet the diverse needs of your workforce. A MetLife study found nearly 3 out of 4 employees said benefits customization would promote loyalty to their employer. Employer-sponsored gym memberships and healthy-living incentive programs are just a couple of ways you can provide unique benefits offerings.

2. “People join companies, but then they leave their boss,” according to Rex Connor, author, and owner of the consulting agency Mager Consortium, and quoted by Bloomberg BNA. If you want to keep talent, you should improve manager-employee relationships. How? Clarification. Remove any subjectivity from performance expectations, policies, and evaluation processes and spotlight clear examples of model employees. When workers know what’s expected of them, they’ll deliver. Setting clear standards will also let your workers know they’re being treated fairly.

3. Forbes suggests promoting a company culture that values employee feedback. Conducting non-judgmental forums where employees can provide their thoughts on their working environment allows companies the opportunity to improve areas that may have otherwise gone unacknowledged. Why wait until frustrations boil over, causing the talent to quit? To further encourage constructive criticism, companies could even allow workers to communicate anonymously.

4. Investing in employee education is a great way to diversify your workforce’s skillset and show your employees you are dedicated to their professional growth. Tuition reimbursement, formal or informal mentoring programs, seminars, and computerized training are all great investments.

5. Don’t micromanage! If you’ve hired the best of the best, they likely already know what they need to do. Allowing employees a degree of autonomy can enhance satisfaction and boost morale.

6. PAY WELL! Provide compensation commensurate with an employee’s experience. Other factors to consider are the cost of living expenses, seniority, and the supply and demand of workers within a particular industry. If you’re not paying appropriately, chances that another company will steal your talent are high.

If you want to keep employees for the long haul, there are clearly many strategies to do so. Just remember to implement the ones that fit within your company culture.

If you need help customizing employee retention strategies, contact our experienced human resources consultants at ExpertHR! We can create an HR strategy tailored to the unique challenges of small businesses or growing startups at a cost-savings compared to an in-house department. We combine our expertise in complex employment law with your company’s vision to develop a human resources approach that will allow your business to flourish.

Providing fathers with the opportunity to take an extended period off for the arrival of a child, by birth or adoption, positively affects familial outcomes. The benefits of paternity leave include the promotion of parent-child bonding; improved health and development outcomes for children; and greater gender equity at home and the workplace, according to the Department of Labor’s policy brief on paternity leave.

These social benefits are highly touted, but how does offering paid paternity leave benefit employers? First, let’s discuss what a California business’s obligations are under the California Paid Family Leave program.

The California Paid Family Leave (CFL) program

The California Paid Family Leave program allows employees, both women, and men, to take up to 6 weeks paid leave within a 12-month period to bond with their newborn, adopted, or fostered child or care for an ill family member.

Employers are not responsible for the added expense of PFL benefits as employees contribute to the State Disability Insurance fund, the department that manages PFL, through tax withholdings from their paycheck.

According to the Small Business Majority, a national small business advocacy organization, California’s PFL program applies to all companies, regardless of their size, but isn’t highly restrictive. The PFL program does not:

• Explicitly protect an employee’s job upon their return.
• Require employers to continue health benefits while employees are on leave.
• Require employees to pay workers while on leave.

Despite seemingly lax regulations, gaps in the PFL program are covered by other policies enacted by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), and California’s Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) regulations. Combined with these policies, an employer is obligated to:

• Reinstate an employee to their former position, or position with equivalent pay and benefits, upon their return from leave.
• Continue health benefits while employees are on leave.
• Not discriminate against employees who decide to take leave or file a complaint about an employer’s failure to adhere to federal and state leave policies.

Note that companies are still not obligated to pay for an employee’s leave under any of the above policies. Paid leave is completely optional in the US.

Moving beyond obligatory family leave policies: attracting and retaining talent with paid paternity leave

Want to attract and retain talent? Offer paid paternity leave.

Considering about 90 percent of fathers take time off for the birth or adoption of a child, paternity leave appears to be a potential perk for drawing and retaining talent. According to a 2014 study of highly educated professional fathers, 9 out of 10 considered paid paternity leave as an important perk when considering potential jobs, while 6 out of 10 considered it extremely important. Apparently, these numbers are even higher among millennials.

In light of these facts, offering paid paternity leave may improve companies’ employee turnover rates, especially for highly skilled positions, such as executives, engineers, and other white-collar professionals. When an employee quits, companies are hit with the cost of advertising the job opening, interviewing dozens of applicants, and training and onboarding new talent.

Some studies suggest losing a skilled worker can cost a company 6 to 9 months of the employee’s salary, while others indicate costs of as much as two times the salary. For example, according to glassdoor.com, the national average executive salary is over $121,000. That means a company could shell out between $20,000 and $242,000 just to replace them!

A host of big names are already offering generous parental leave benefits for both mothers and fathers, including Facebook, which allows employees to take as much as 4 months off for the birth of a child.

If you need to bring your company policies in compliance with current federal or state regulations regarding paid employee leave, contact RTR Consulting today! We can create or update your human resources strategy at a cost-savings compared to an in-house department. We combine our expertise in complex employment law with your company’s vision to develop a human resources approach that will allow your business to flourish.

Are your employees classified correctly according to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)? What kind of impact can it have on your organization if they aren’t?

Misclassified employees as exempt create exposure to not being in compliance with FSLA. If the employee does not meet the test to be exempt, employers could have exposure for three years of overtime, rest, and meal periods exposure.  To meet an exempt classification, a job must pass a “test” consisting of three prongs outlined in the FLSA regulations – salary level, salary basis, and duties. If the employee does not meet the salary test, they cannot be exempt. The longer you wait to reclassify your employees the more expensive it may be. And because job duties change over time, what was once an appropriate classification maybe a year or two ago can now be a misclassification.

RTR Consulting Inc. helps our clients meet the requirements of the FLSA, by reviewing positions’ exempt/non-exempt status, job descriptions, job analysis as well as overtime policies and procedures. RTR Consulting Inc. utilizes the most current regulations, as well as the Department of Labor information to provide best practice recommendations for position classifications.