Name: Top 5 HR Compliance Watchouts for 2026 (and How to Avoid Them)
Uploaded: 2026-02-25T20:09:05.539Z
Duration: 49 min 32 s
Description: Top 5 HR Compliance Watchouts for 2026 (and How to Avoid Them)

Transcript for "Top 5 HR Compliance Watchouts for 2026 (and How to Avoid Them)": compliance watchouts and how to avoid them. We'll give it a minute for everyone to join in, but please feel free to drop in the chat where you're calling in from. We'd love to hear from you. I see some people are in here already. We've got North Carolina, New York, Nevada. I bet there's a lot of snow in New York right now is what I've heard. We got one from San Diego, California. I don't think there's any snow there. But You're right. Yeah. I've got Northern Colorado. I'm in Colorado, and it's, like, 70 here today. So we've had a. we've had a warm a warm February. Indeed. Awesome. Well, we're seeing more and more people join in. Like I said, we'll get started in just about a minute. I have people from all over. Wow. We have Kona Kona, Hawaii. Nice. Of the webinar. There's also a tab for Q and A specifically where you can submit questions as you go. We'll have some time at the end to go through some questions live. And then finally, no worry about taking notes. We're going to share out the webinar recording with everyone tomorrow, and then also include a SHRM code if you're needing to get credits as a SHRM certified professional. Awesome. And here's a quick overview of the agenda. Erin and I will be doing some quick intros, and then we're going to obviously talk about what's changing in 2026 across leave laws, AI, wage and hour, and then finally some California specifics. Then we'll wrap up with some live q and a. Like I mentioned, please remember to drop those in the q and a function as we go along. Awesome. So I'll start off with my introduction. My name is Angie. I'm the manager of the HR advising team here at Rippling, and we support our Rippling PEO HR services and US employer of record customers. I've been in the PEO and HR consulting space coming up on ten years. Really enjoy the pace of PEO, and it's something that HR is always changing. Erin, I'm sure you can attest to that, and employment law is always changing. So that's really what I love about this. And if you didn't hear me at the beginning, I'm located just South Of Denver in Colorado. Live here with my husband, two kids, and two chihuahuas. So that's a little bit about me. I'll toss it over to Erin. Good late morning, everyone. Good afternoon to some of you on the East Coast. My name is Aaron Cargain. I'm a partner in with Fisher Phillips in the San Francisco office. Live in the Bay Area. Been an attorney for about seventeen years, a little under, been practicing employment law exclusively for about the last five or six. When I'm not working, I am basically acting as a chauffeur or a Sherpa for my two daughters. And, like Andy, I have I have a dog as well. So that is, that's life in the Bay Area and working as an employment attorney. Love that. Awesome. I'd love to start us off with a quick poll, actually, before we get into the content. So that will pop up on your screen, and you'll be able to vote on that. So what we really would like to know is, right, employer compliance is a huge topic. So we wanna know what your biggest challenge right now is, and what's that thing that's keeping you up at night? Feel free to go ahead and submit your answers here, and then we'll get into it a little bit further. I'm seeing a lot here. Keeping up with new labor laws seems to be our biggest. Yeah. I think as an employment attorney, that's one of our primary concerns as well, obviously, keeping up with employment laws, but also keeping our clients abreast of what's what's changed. So, hopefully, we'll help you here with that today. Yeah. And I see we have submitting required compliance filings. We you know, we've also assisted and provided a device and counsel on those issues as well. Awesome. Great. Erin, I'll. pass it over to you. Sure. Yeah. No. No. So I guess we're gonna start off talking about some of the compliance landscapes. And as you can see, we've had, you know, quite a few, whereas we will be talking about well, there have been quite a few changes in the law, not only with respect to reporting, but the use of AI, wage and hour laws, etcetera. So we're gonna be covering some of those issues today. So, importantly, there have been many, many new laws across virtually every state that there are just new employment laws that we're gonna have to comply with, that we're gonna have to be aware of, and that we're gonna have to provide guidance on, not only to our customers, but also to our employees and our HR managers to make sure we're in compliance with the the laws. So we're gonna go ahead and get started by talking about, some of the leave laws specifically. Awesome. And, Yeah. Angie, I'll talk to you. Absolutely. So I'm gonna gonna start off before I get into leave law information. We're gonna do another quick poll here. So I would love to know how many people have had an employee go on leave this year. And, again, you should be able to see that poll and vote directly there. Oh, wow. I'm actually surprised at how many there we go. How many employers have actually had employees that have not gone out on leave yet. I mean, considering we're almost through two full months of of the year, it's actually surprising. I mean, I've spoken to so many employers who have actually almost virtually every single one has had an employee that's gone out on a leave of some kind. Yeah. I completely agree. It's a topic that we get daily, I would say, on the HR adviser team here at Rippling. So with that being said, let's, you know, dive into it a little bit more. Leave laws, admittedly, can be quite confusing. And I wanted to run through some main differences between paid sick leave, paid family medical leave, and then the Family Medical Leave Act. There's a lot of text on this slide, so no worries. Like we said, we're going to send it out. I'm going to run through some of these here. Employer mandated paid sick leave is an amount of time that you must grant to employees under state or local or even sometimes city law. And so this provides leave to employees for very specific reasons. They can take it for their own illness, caring for a family member. But there's also some laws that have a safe leave portion to them, too. So that means leave for when they're victims of domestic violence or need to attend to items like that. So it's really a very specific reason to use leave. Now separately from that, there's the federal Family Medical Leave Act. Excuse me. Say that a couple times fast. And that is a job protected leave. So this applies to employers with 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks. There's lots of specifics on eligibility that I won't get into in the nitty gritty here. But really, this is different from paid sick leave in the sense that it provides job protection for these specific reasons. Right? And then on top of that, to make things even more potentially complicated, some states also have wage replacement programs that can run at the same time as family medical leave. So those are usually called paid family medical leave or paid family leave. And those don't always provide job protection, but they provide some wage replacement or benefit replacement to an employee who needs to take leave for their own medical condition, caring for a family member. Again, each of these has pretty specific reasons why an employee can take leave, So it's important to know the difference. What I would say as a takeaway on this slide is think of the first two columns as employer compliance obligations. And then the last column for state wage replacement is more like an insurance program as a benefit to your employees who need to take leave. And it's really important, Erin, I'll let you jump in here too. But it's important to check your state leave laws in addition to some of these federal laws like the FMLA or state sick leave. Yeah. Thank you, Angie. So to your point in California, I've done presentations, I think, on probably at least three or four occasions that are dedicated solely to the issue of leaves. In California, you know, we have I can think of just off the top of my head, probably four or five different types of leave. You know, the Healthy Workers, Healthy Families Act, the Paid Sick Leave Act. Just that in and of itself, there's so many nuances just based on the different counties and the different cities. Some of them have their own requirements with respect to front loading versus accrual and when you can do that and when you cannot. So you definitely wanna be cognizant of those issues just as to sick leave alone. And then when you're talking about, for instance, FMLA and its interplay with California's Family Rights Act, Right. the CFRA, right, whether or not those should run concurrently, which we generally recommend that they do so that, ultimately, you're not providing up to twenty four weeks of leave. And then there are leaves for baby bonding, bereavement, you know, as we've as we've called out with respect to sick leave, leave for domestic violence, etcetera. So leaves can, and often do get tricky, and it's it's a good idea to consult with professionals on those issues. Yeah, 100%. Leave is something that is always evolving and can be quite tricky. On the next slide, this is a good visual. It gives you sort of a high level look at paid leave laws specifically. And so again, these vary a lot by state, which you can see from color here. And you want take this in also considering the job protected leave laws, like Erin was just mentioning, in California. There is both job protection and wage replacement. And that's not unique to California. Other states like New York have similar paid leave along with job protected leave in there. So this is a good resource to come back to with paid leave specifically. Absolutely. And go go ahead. Sorry. Oh, yeah. No. Absolutely. Did, you. No. yeah. No. I was just gonna. quickly touch I was just gonna quickly touch on, yeah, the points with respect to California and, you know, partial wage replacement under, you know, state programs and front loaded versus accrued sick pay. All of those types of things are you know, they can be paid Yes. whether it's directly through your employer or through the state. Totally. So. absolutely. Awesome. Great. So on this one, wanted to highlight a few new employer mandated paid leaves and and some workplace protections that are rolling out this year. Right? We mentioned earlier there's a lot of new laws coming into effect in 2026. So as a high level, New York City has implemented some expansions to its Earned Sick and Safe Time Act, which includes reasons related to caregiving, substance benefits and housing, workplace violence. So sometimes it's not a new law altogether, but there are changes to these things too that are also good things to keep an eye out for. Another one, Pittsburgh, which is a local leave, right? State and sick leave accrual is changing. So they're changing the accrual method, the amount each year. And then Illinois also now requires employers with six or more employees to provide paid lactation breaks. This is another new change. And honestly, this isn't even all of them. These are a few that we wanted to highlight. But for example, in Colorado, there was also an expansion to the Family Act here, which now provides additional paid leave protections for those who have a baby in the NICU, so offering an additional twelve weeks in there. And then there's also some expansions to California paid family leave, which maybe Erin you could touch on. Yeah. Absolutely. So in California, it's SB five ninety, which has essentially expanded the rights to whom this could apply to, essentially, to designated persons, which I think tracks some of the other states as well in terms of who or who cannot be considered covered under under leave act. Mhmm. So California is very similar to others. And in fact, it's it's expanding even further out in about two years. In 2028, they're going to go ahead and expand that even further. Awesome. That's good to keep an eye on for sure. Awesome. So I wanted to take some time to chat about some commonly asked leave law questions. So these are real questions that we get on our HR advisor team and that we advise on on a regular basis. So first one here, and maybe you've had this question, and that's okay too, right? Hopefully we can give some insight here. So can I cover my sick leave requirements with unlimited PTO? This is probably a question we get on a weekly basis. And in true HR fashion, I'm gonna say it depends, right? So in certain circumstances, you can cover your state sick leave requirements with an existing PTO policy. The main thing to keep in mind here is that it has to be as generous or more generous than what the state requires. And that expands to not only the number of hours of leave provided, but things like the accrual rate, how many can be carried over into the next year, what purposes the leave can be used for. So, typically, our recommendation is to have these as separate leave balances. Right? And the thought behind that is that allows you to comply with the state or local sick and safe leave law and allow the employer greater control over your PTO policy. You want to be able to determine when business need allows for someone to take three weeks of vacation, or maybe when it doesn't. But sick leave is something that employees are entitled to. So you have to afford them that time under the law. Can I jump in on that. really quickly as well? Yeah. I was gonna say with respect to unlimited policies, it's definitely going back to consulting professionals. Again, it's a very good idea to consult on the issue of unlimited PTO. By way of example, I had one client who prepared their own policy and ultimately ended up covering their employees' FMLA leave, in its entirety through the unlimited PTO policy. Right. They wanted to rescind on that, and they had a question as to whether or not they had to pay it. And basic given the way that the policy itself was drafted, they ultimately created an obligation above and beyond what essentially required by state law. So you have to you have to be careful in some respects in what you include in your un well, not in some respects. You have to be careful in what you include in your unlimited PTO policies, including, obviously, SIC requirements, which, again, you know, you have to comply with with the laws of your state. Mhmm. Yep. Exactly. And it's really important to review those by state. Right? Some states' requirements match up nicely. Some are really quite divergent. And, you know, it may not be possible to sort of roll that all into your PTO policy. Awesome. Yeah. We we actually frequently advise on these types of policies, creating, you know, creating sick policies for for different states. And there to Angie's point, there really is no one one size fits all approach. We have, you know, oftentimes multiple addenda for different states and even different localities. So you have to definitely be aware of that and consult with professionals to make sure you're you're you're covering it and catching everything you need to. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. The the next question here is, is paid family medical leave handled for me in New York and California? These are two really high visibility states, states that we deal with on a regular basis, and they operate very differently. In New York, the state disability and paid family leave programs are administered through an insurance carrier. So that can be the New York State Insurance Fund, could be a private carrier that you utilize. In contrast, California has a state program run by the EDD where, right, there's wage deductions from people's payroll. They pay into that benefit. When they need to take leave, those benefits are paid through them by the agency. Many states I also want to highlight, too also offer this option to offer what's called an equivalent plan. So similar to how sick leave you have to meet the requirements or more, Some states allow you the option to opt out of the state run program and offer what's called an equivalent plan through an insurance carrier, but again, has to meet these very specific requirements outlined by the law to ensure that employees are getting the exact same benefit that they would under that program. Awesome. And then the last one is, do I need to top up state benefit payments while my employee is on leave? The short answer is no, unless perhaps you're in San Francisco. Then the answer is, you you need to check your local law because there is a paid parental leave ordinance. But in most cases, you're not required to top up payments. However, many employers often choose to layer their parental leave or baby bonding leave policies that's provided as an employee workplace benefit on top of these state benefit programs, right, to give the employer richer experience and potentially make them whole while they're away from work in those scenarios. Awesome, we move on to the next slide, please. Oh, thank you. So a couple of tips here to make sure that you're in compliance with leave laws. You could obviously use mineral if you're a Rippling client to stay up to date on labor laws, and even build update your handbook in really just a short amount of time, which is wonderful. Mineral is included as part of PEO and HR services. You know, additionally, if you are a PEO or HR services customer, you have access to my team. So we have a team of HR advisors that answer these questions on a regular basis. We can always assist you with compliance questions and provide guidance as part of that service. Erin, I want you to chat a little bit about writing clear policies. Yeah. Sure. So that's another thing that our firm offers as well. We have a dedicated team that focuses on drafting all sorts of different policies, whether it be handbooks. Again, if that's covered through your PEO, then great. That may or may not be a service that you need. But we also provide, you know, different types of policies, workplace violence prevention programs, injury and illness prevention programs, sick pro or sick pay programs, unlimited PTO, etcetera. You just you ultimately, I think the the key point is that you're just making sure that you're in compliance with with laws. And if you have you know, it it's a good idea to generally check at least on an annual basis to ensure you're up to date and compliant. Yeah. Absolutely. If you or if anyone here wants to learn more about offloading some of this compliance support, you can absolutely select book time with our team in the poll that's about to open here, and then we'll make sure to get in contact. Awesome. We'll toss it over to you for this one, Erin. Sure. Yeah. So wage and hour changes. Effective January 26, as you can see, there's been a change in minimum wage to quite a few states. And to make things more complicated, at least in California, there are many different municipalities and counties where the minimum wage is even higher than the state minimum wage. Mhmm. So you have to make sure you're complying with the minimum wage in the county that you're operating in. So for instance, like Los Angeles, I believe, their minimum wage is significantly higher than the California minimum wage. And San Francisco, I believe, is another, they were you just have to make sure that you're you're paying the minimum wage in the the jurisdictions in which you're operating. Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. It's not necessarily one size fits all, checking those states. I wanted to make a a quick mention here that with rippling, we have a feature that's called compliance three sixty, and it automatically flags any employees whose wage falls below the applicable wage requirement. So that can be on a state or even a local level, And that's sort of part of the compliance that can be taken off of your plate as part of that service. So as you'll see from this slide as well, the change in the minimum wage has has impacts beyond just the hourly nonexempt employees. For example, in California, the change in the minimum wage has impacted the minimum salary requirement, minimum salary threshold for exempt employees, whether they're designated as exempt under the administrative, executive, or professional exemptions, the minimum salary is now 70,304. California also has a computer professional, salary minimum salary requirement, which, as you can see, is a 122,000 and change. And then, also, for nonexempt computer professionals, this salary has gone up to or, excuse me, the hourly wage, rather, has gone up to $58.85. Mhmm. So that's not unique to California. Obviously, there are changes to salary thresholds as a result of the minimum wage in other states as well. As you can see here, Alaska, Colorado, New York, Maine, Washington, and even you know, it appears New York City has its own peculiarities as well with respect to minimum salary requirements. It does. Yes. Absolutely. If you're in New York, keep an eye out for those counties in addition to state and local leave laws. Excuse me. Wage an hour. Still on leave. Still on top of mind. So AI and compliance. This has been a huge, huge hot button in the legal industry. It's something that is a huge focus in our firm. We, you know, we're required to go through undergo AI training. And, ultimately, as attorneys, we we see a lot of news about how people are using AI to potentially trap their own pro per briefs or even you know? And what we're seeing a lot of is is hallucinations and, you know, other issues such as bias that arises out of the use in AI, and I we're gonna be covering some of those, right now. But I think first, we're going to have a poll regarding whether or not you've ever used AI to draft a policy. I'm really interested to see where we land on this one. Looks like right away. Yeah. We almost a few. Yeah. more than two thirds have. So my advice to those who have used AI to draft policies is double check your work. You know, potentially triple check your work. Make sure that whatever you're creating isn't a function of potential potential hallucination. I think we're gonna get into an example here, but I guess in a little bit. But, ultimately, what's what's more important is that when you use AI, it's not always correct. Mhmm. Right? I've been talking a lot about hallucinations. There's been, you know, a bunch of news where people will draft briefs that they submit to courts, and AI will create cases that have never existed. And these attorneys will get before courts and ultimately get sanctioned. Some have been sanctioned tens of thousands of dollars for their use of AI. And that's not unique to, you know, to brief writing. It it happens in policies as well. And, you know, AI is essentially, to a certain extent, an aggregator. Right? It it pulls information from different sources, most of which may or may not be accurate. AI isn't a legal expert. It just it again, it can potentially create something that is a culmination of all of its different sources. It may not be correct. And, ultimately, AI is not responsible for the errors. You as the end user are responsible for the information that you create as a result of your use of AI in policy drafting. So it might be a great tool for starting, but, ultimately, you don't wanna rely on it as your final work product. So case in point, we ran an AI exercise on drafting a meal period policy. And I can tell you if you were to implement this policy in California, you would be inviting wage and hour lawsuits if you included it in your handbook or in your policy, just given the the errors that occur in here. Right? For instance, employees are only allowed one paid ten minute rest break for each hour's work. Rest breaks should be taken only when distance needs allow. That's that would be a problem in California immediately. You know, if you had that policy in there, there would almost be a presumption that you were denying employees the ability to take breaks, combining and skipping, that those are both no no's under California law. Skipping breaks would entitle, employees to rest period premiums under one hour of pay at the regular rate of pay. So that's another issue we can get into altogether. But, ultimately again, here's another thing that we're talking about. Remaining on-site. That that's another kind of problem. And if you add that in your policy, that would be an issue. Automatic deductions, problematic. All of the highlighted and bold language that you see in this policy, which was generated through the use of AI, would create liability on behalf of the company. So, you know, you can familiarize yourself with the laws and then check that against the policies that you prepared, or you can consult with Ripley or with counsel on these particular issues. But generally speaking, if you are going to use AI, it would be a best practice to make sure that you're you're triple checking your work. So, basically, there are new laws you can see. You have laws in Colorado and Illinois talking about what the use of AI. And this is you know, obviously, this is something that employers have to be mindful of if you're generating policies, but also with respect to hiring and discrimination and bias in your hiring practice. This is something that's also been a hot topic in that AI, again, is an aggregator tool, and it's relying a lot on past information to build upon its its modeling and its decision making process, and that has resulted in discrimination lawsuits among others. So there have been laws that have been passed, example, again, Colorado and Illinois, which basically require employers from using AI to discriminate against their workers and or potential applicants with respect to hiring practices and just, generally speaking, employment. So what do you wanna do to make sure you're in compliance? Ultimately, you wanna review your tools. Right? You wanna use vendors that audit their their AI tools. Right? Again, going back through and looking at what the assumptions are that the models are using when they're drafting policies or screening applicants, for example. Partner with a law firm. Our firm does this type a lot of this type of work. We have dedicated individuals who are who focus on AI. And, basically, every law firm retreat that I've been to in the last three or four years, AI has been at the forefront of what we've been speaking at. It it literally takes up half of the time and half of the, you know, the seminars that we're dealing with. So if you need information about AI, please feel free to reach out to either Ripley or to us, and we can assist you with those issues. It's a really robust topic, I think, is in general, and certainly ever evolving. So I think we're gonna focus now on some California specific laws, which I'm happy to touch on. Pay data reporting. Next slide, please. Yeah. So, basically, private employers with a 100 plus employees have to submit annual pay data reports to the California Civil Rights Department, including the number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex in 10 different categories. So, basically, you have to fill out these forms, and employers are required to collect and and to store demographic information for pay data reporting. And beginning, I guess, in about a little less than a year now, our reporting requirements increase the number of job categories from 10 to 23. So it's gonna be a very robust requirement for employers to to to follow. Again, courts are this you know, we can you see the language here. Required shall impose civil penalties on employers for failing to submit reports. So the law is relatively new, so we haven't really dealt with having to defend these issues yet in court or to provide, you know, explanations to the court as to why we're either late or not in compliance. But rest assured, that will be forthcoming. So, again, Rippling, I guess, has an EEOC reporting app. Do you wanna touch on that briefly, Angie? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So if you are a rippling PEO or HR services customer, we can handle this filing on your behalf. And part of that is through the EEOC reporting app that helps you, you know, stay compliant, collect the data, write, and put it out in a way that can be received by the state agency as well. Okay. So California's Know Your Rights Act, which, as you can see, just went into effect this month. Employers in California are required to provide all current employees with annual notice outlining work outlining workers' protections against unfair immigration related practices and their constitutional rights when interacting with law enforcement. So, you know, that's been a very, very hot button issue not only in California but throughout the country. Employers have to notice by an employer's designated contact if the employee is arrested or detained at work. And employees are required to give employers the opportunity to designate an emergency contact by no later than March 30 at the time of hire for employers starting after that date. So, again, if you're a California employer, make sure that you're complying with this requirement. You know, again, very, very hot topic. Probably not here not just here in California, prob probably nationwide. Yeah. And, again, I think this is something that that RipLink can assist you with. Yeah. Absolutely. Certainly, can indicate who their emergency contact is within the system. Right? So that it's easily located and stored there for you in alignment with this with this new law. You know, and something I just wanted to touch on really quickly before we go forward is that there can be fairly significant penalties for noncompliance with this as well. You can now have compliance for $500 per employee up to 10,000 per employee for ongoing violations. So if you you know, there's a one off, you fail to do it, but then you fail to remediate the issue, penalty can be significant. So, you know, obviously, use the tools that are available to you through Rippling and, you know, reach out to counsel if you have questions. Absolutely. So we know that this, of course, is a lot of information, a lot to take in. So we wanted to provide some information on where to start. And that really first piece here is we're gonna leave you with an actionable place to start here. The first thing is a US compliance calendar. We're gonna go ahead and drop the link into the chat, and then we'll also follow-up via email. So this compliance calendar can really help you track key US compliance deadlines. Right? There's many, it's evolving, but it also includes a Google Calendar link, which I think is great. You can link that to your calendar, you can keep track of these things throughout the year so that they're, you know, always present when you need to have them jog your memory. And then on the next slide, right, there's an immense amount of things to manage from an HR and compliance standpoint. That is that is no secret. And it is through every stage and every piece of the employee life cycle. You know, when you hire in a new state, you're setting up states and local payroll tax accounts. You're, you know, potentially navigating registration requirements, verifying guidelines, tracking state specific labor laws, including sick leave or paid family leave, right, or minimum wage. As we discussed, when you terminate an employee, you're issuing COBRA documentation, making sure any sort of state separation items are not missed. Each of these steps inherently can carry some risk for failure to comply or failure to complete. If you miss a registration, if you have a late filing, if you send the wrong notice, you may be potentially facing penalties, audits, even employee complaints. Just having someone come to you and say, hey, why wasn't this done? And it can really add up quickly. So for lean teams without dedicated compliance resources, it can feel overwhelming, really reactive instead of strategic. And if you're thinking, right, at this point, I'm not really sure that I'm staying fully compliant, I think you're probably not alone, that's okay. The important thing is to address it, to get in front of it. And obviously, I would encourage you to connect with our team so we can help you understand how to further assess where you stand and also how we can help on those fronts. So this same slide, we just sort of flipped it. Right? So in contrast, these are all things that Rippling and our HR services add on can help with. So we take care of the state and local payroll tax account setup, ongoing maintenance. We help you build and maintain compliant employee handbooks through the use of mineral. You get access again. I mean, shameless plug for my team. You get access to HR advisers like myself and like my team who can support you with these day to day questions. Right? I have someone that notified me that they need to go out on leave, and they're in the state of Washington. What do I do? Those things come up, and sometimes you don't know the answer. We're here to help. Rippling handles dozens of required filings on your behalf, similar to the California pay data reporting that Erin was just speaking about, and really so much more. So I think if at any point during this presentation you found yourself wondering, maybe I haven't done that, maybe I'm not compliant in this area, or if some of these things felt new or unfamiliar, totally normal. Compliance is complex, constantly evolving. I've said that a few times, but I'll keep saying it. It's ever evolving. And we're going to go ahead and launch another poll here where you can grab a few minutes with our team to sort of talk through how you can handle compliance today and how Rippling can help. Obviously, we're more than happy to chat. And then we'll move into the QA portion of our session here so that we can answer as many questions as we can get to and do some live Q and A. Awesome. So let's look through here. So I see one, does the advising have legal backing as well? And I'm happy to take that one. So our HR advisors are not employment attorneys. So we provide HR best practice and compliance guidance, but we also partner with Aaron and Fisher Phillips. Right? So when those things become sticky, tricky, it sort of can move past an HR issue and turn into a legal issue. And that's when we would really encourage you to work with an employment attorney, similar to how Erin was speaking. Right? Some of those things just need legal eye. I'm sure you would agree. Yeah. And, you know, if you ever have further questions, you please feel free to reach out, directly. You can email me or call me and ask questions if you have if you need legal advice, that may go beyond the scope of what can be provided to you through Rippling. Erin, I see I'm, seeing, with Rippling. because that's. Exactly. that's, I'm seeing? a lot of questions about the pay data reporting and whether or not it applies to a 100 employees in California or a 100 employees across the company. That's a good question. And ultimate I think the way it should be looked at would likely be to out of an abundance of caution, would be to let's see. I'm looking at the California pay data reporting requirement from the CRD, and it says California law requires private employers of 100 or more payroll employees and private client employers of 100 or more labor contractor employers to annually report pay demographic and other workforce data to the CRD. The reporting requirement is required under California government code section one two nine nine nine. That doesn't specifically answer the question that was asked, but I think out of an abundance of caution, it makes sense to interpret it as nationwide as opposed to California wide. But I'm gonna double check the California government code now to see whether or not there's further guidance on that particular issue. But, again, this is such a a new you know, kind of a new issue that, ultimately, it makes sense to, I think, look at it in terms of being more liberal and more inclusive rather than exclusive in the information provided. Absolutely. While you're looking at that, I'm happy. I saw a question about our HR advisers and how they can best be leveraged when building HR policies, and I'm happy to answer that one. So the question is, right, should we ask specific questions based on the draft policies available in mineral and the additions we're considering. And I think that's a great place to start, right? So you remain fully in control of how you implement and write your policies, but the HR advisor team is there to review them in conjunction with HR best practice and applicable, of course, state and federal law. So I would say reach out, give us a draft of the policy that you're working on, and we're happy to review it and provide any feedback based on best practice, what we're seeing other companies implement, etcetera. And if I can just clarify on my prior answer, I I reviewed California government code section one two nine nine nine, which, again, has just been put into place in the last year or so, and it doesn't specify it doesn't clarify whether it's in California or nationwide. So I think out of an abundance of caution, perhaps you take the view that it's inclusive of all of your employees rather than than just your California based employees. Awesome. That's great. Thank you. K. Taking a look here. So there's a question about what if PTO covers both time off, vacation, and sick time? So sort of a lump sum. I'm seeing some questions in here. Right? Both lump sum PTO that accounts for both vacation and sick. And Erin, I'd love your thoughts on this. In my opinion, from an HR perspective, right, it can be tricky because, right, one, you may be able to comply with the law in that way, even if it's not an unlimited policy. But then you're really restricting some of your ability to control vacation time. Right? If someone doesn't tell you that they're needing to go out for a sick and safe leave reason and the request is denied, right, that person may be able to say that they were denied that time afforded to them under the sick and safe leave law. It's the the question here that you're asking is what if ETO covers both time off, vacation, and sick. Yeah. Was that. it? In in series. of lump sum. Right? We just give one amount of PTO, and we want it to cover both vacation and sick. Yeah. So for the reasons I think that Angie previously pointed out, it makes infinite amount of sense to actually separate the two, a, just to make sure that you're complying with your local sick leave laws wherever you may be. Right? Whether they require you to provide a specific amount or to even, you know, to reference that. There's even wage statement concerns that arise out of how you designate the time. Right? So you I think in order to track the leave and to make sure that you're complying with all laws governing, you know, whether it's sick time or just PTO, that do basically separate the two and that you do have requirements in terms of the specifying the reason it's being used. Yeah. Absolutely. I think we probably have time for maybe one or two more questions. There was one, Erin, asking sort of how AI can discriminate. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, absolutely. So there have actually been quite a few lawsuits in the last couple years governing discrimination in hiring practices. Right? So, basically, it AI is an aggregating tool. Again, I'll say it. It basically functions off of all of the information that it's reviewed previously to get to get more intelligent in terms of how it's making its decisions. So, ultimately, what's been alleged is that the way that the information is processed and utilized is actually disproportionately impacted, different people of different protected classes. So that's why you wanna have and work with an AI provider that generally and regularly checks its AI models for issues like this and actually scrubs out potentially discriminatory based pattern patterning, for lack of a better word. Interesting. Great. I think one more to end on is a question, are there best practices to follow to manage leaves when there are state and city leave laws that apply? And I think, yes, of course. I think part of it is understanding the law and how those overlap. Sometimes city and state laws will say, here's how we work together. And one may go first, one may be subsequent. Sometimes they run concurrently. And so it's really understanding how those overlap. And again, if there's lack of clarity, reaching out to an HR advisor or legal counsel to confirm. And then also taking into consideration how that works with your potential internal policies. Do you run these concurrently at the same time? Erin mentioned, as a best practice, they recommend that so that you're not potentially having situations where employees are on pretty much a double amount of time of leave. Right? Twenty four weeks instead of twelve running concurrently. And can I just give a quick. clarifying point on the California pay data reporting? Sure. I just reviewed California's, the CRD's guidance, and it does include employees outside of California as well. Oh, awesome. So, yeah, I've you know, the statute has, again, was silent on the particular issue, Yeah. but the CRD has issued guidance that says, yes. It's both inside and outside of California. Amazing. That's great to know. Thank you for checking on that for us. Awesome. Well, great. You know, just a couple, you know, final notes before we go. Obviously, thank you, everyone, for joining us. On the next slide, if you are at all interested in chatting with Fisher Phillips about any of the items that were discussed today or maybe any other burning questions that you have, we have Aaron's contact information here so that you can work with him or the other wonderful partners at Fisher Phillips. I would ask that you please fill out the survey on your screen so that we can continue to improve these sessions. We wanna hear your feedback and make sure that we're incorporating that in future webinars. You can also, in that same survey, let us know if you wanna chat with someone on the Riffling team. And then as a final reminder, if needed, you'll also receive your SHRM code via email so that you can enter that for continuing education credit. Really appreciate everyone joining us today. Hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day, afternoon, morning, wherever you're located. Thank you all.