Category: California Questions

Quirky Question #246, iKnow where your iPad is

Quirky Question #246, iKnow where your iPad is

Question: Our California company intends to provide iPads to all of our sales employees, but to make sure we can locate the iPads if they are lost or stolen, we plan to use the iPads’ GPS capabilities to track their locations.  As an added bonus, we’ll also be able to track the sales employees themselves.  Any concerns with this plan?

Quirky Question #242 – Policing Break and Time Records Pays Off

Quirky Question #242 – Policing Break and Time Records Pays Off

Question: We are a California employer.   After all the publicity surrounding class actions over meal and break periods, we instituted automatic warnings if employees take too long or too short a meal or rest break. Is anyone really enforcing this kind of discipline or are we wasting our time?

Quirky Question # 239, Employers Might Be Liable For Accidents During The Commute If They Require Employees To Use Their Vehicle During The Work Day

Quirky Question # 239, Employers Might Be Liable For Accidents During The Commute If They Require Employees To Use Their Vehicle During The Work Day

Question: Our office manager occasionally runs errands during the day such as delivering something to a customer or picking up lunch for a meeting. We reimburse her at the IRS rate for mileage. Yesterday, on her way home, she rear-ended the car in front of her causing substantial damage.  She has asked for the company’s insurance information. We told her...

Quirky Question #228, E-Cigarettes: To Vape or Not to Vape at the Workplace

Quirky Question #228, E-Cigarettes: To Vape or Not to Vape at the Workplace

Question: Our California company has a no smoking policy but had not thought to include a ban on e-cigarettes, as we had not experienced any problems with them at the workplace until now.  A handful of our employees use e-cigarettes during work hours.  A week ago, a supervisor informed HR that coworkers were concerned about the health effects of being...

Quirky Question # 224, The De Minimis Defense to Off the Clock Work Claims

Quirky Question # 224, The De Minimis Defense to Off the Clock Work Claims

Question: We have an employee who is claiming that he should be paid for time cleaning up his work station after logging out of our electronic time keeping system each night.  Literally, he spends one or two minutes straightening his piles of paper and on other trivial similar tasks.  Another company HR representative said that every minute an employee spends...