Enhanced Tracking Automation and reporting assists with California Parental Leave Law Compliance
SB 63: New California Parental Leave law
California Small Employers, as of January 2018, will be obligated to provide job-protected, time off of work for the employee’s own serious health condition, the serious health condition of certain family members, or for baby bonding after the birth or placement of a child for adoption or foster care.
SB 63, California’s New Parental Leave law, partially expanded the baby bonding component of this entitlement by making it an unlawful employment practice for an employer of 20 or more employees within 75 miles of the worksite to refuse to allow an eligible employee, who has at least 1,250 hours of service with the employer during the previous 12-month period, to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected parental leave to bond with a new child within one year of the child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement.
This bill also prohibited subject employers from refusing to maintain and pay for coverage under a group health plan during the duration of the leave or retaliating against an employee for exercising their SB 63 rights. Finally, the bill established a mediation pilot program to provide for the Department to mediate claims arising under SB 63.
Consequences to Small Business
Putting the obvious issue for employers to the side, such as staffing issues and cost of continuation of health insurance benefits for employees while out on leave, the administrative and tracking issues will be THE BIGGEST burden on small businesses.
Relying on manual processes and spreadsheets to pull data together correctly for these leave cases is complicated, time consuming mistakes can be expensive. Without the proper systems and tools to track an employee’s time used, eligibility, what leave they are entitled to and when and how to reinstate the employee all exposes employers to claims for Fair Employment and Housing Act violations under SB 63.
OnePoint Leave of Absence Manager
Our unified HCM platform, simplifies leave case management by seamlessly accessing, time and labor, HR and payroll data to streamline tracking of all requirements under this law as well as other federal and state laws. The end result is peace of mind and lower compliance risk for our clients.
Configured checklists simplify management of complex leave cases including notifications at key times throughout a leave of absence that send the appropriate state brochures and forms that may need completion by the employee and/or HR. Auto-generated reports serves as a reminder for HR action items, such as notification of when the employee is approaching the exhaustion of their leave allotment.Rules are configured in the system to customize your leave of absence policies as well as state and federal leaves.
The end result for HR professionals is Peace of Mind and lower compliance risk. Manually managing leave cases is stressful and the chance for an error or missed step increases.