California’s Workplace Know Your Rights Act (SB 294) has been in effect since January 1, but there’s one more milestone in the rollout most employers don’t know about. Tomorrow, July 1, the California Labor Commissioner is required to publish two educational videos — one for employees and one for employers — covering the rights and obligations under the law. Both will be posted at www.dir.ca.gov/dlse.
Employers are not required to distribute or screen these videos. The statute gives employers the option to share a link to or show the employee-facing video in addition to the mandatory written notice. That said, the employer-facing video is essentially a free compliance training from the state, and, once it’s live, it’s a practical resource that may be worth incorporating into manager training, onboarding, and your annual HR refreshers.
The July 1st date is a good prompt to confirm your organization has actually completed all three employer-side obligations:
• Did you distribute the standalone written notice to all current employees by February 1? The model notice is available in eleven languages at dir.ca.gov/dlse/Know-Your-Rights-Notice.
• Did you give all existing employees the opportunity to designate an emergency contact by March 30, and is that process built into new hire onboarding?
• Are you retaining records of compliance, including date and method of delivery, for at least three years?
years?
Penalties for non-compliance run up to $500 per employee for notice violations, and up to $10,000 per employee for emergency contact notification failures. Keep an eye out for the Labor Commissioner’s new videos. If your SB 294 compliance stalled after February, now is the time to close the gaps before a Labor Commission inquiry does it for you.