How HCSS Can Assist Your Compliance and Protection of California's Reformed Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA)

Hello, everybody, and welcome to our webinar today. Today, the topic is navigating compliance. We're going to be discussing Paga and its, impact really on construction and and timekeeping and and timekeeping software. Just go ahead and hit the next slide. My name is Andrew Fowler. I'm one of our senior product managers for HCSS. I work on our heavy job application, which is for timekeeping, which we'll be talking about today, and on the, cost estimating side or, excuse me, cost management side. I'll also let Forrest introduce ourself. Happy to have Forrest along for the ride here. This is a dense a bulk top a bulky topic, and so we wanted to make sure that we brought in the right person for this. And so Forrest will be, leading, most of this presentation. Forrest? Yeah. Hey, guys. Welcome to the webinar. Like Andrew said, my name is Forrest Parr. I am our director of legal here. And so, you know, handling all things legal, and so we'll be, definitely addressing, the wacky world of Kaga and, how you can comply and just the basics and then how we can, give you some tips of navigating compliance as well as reducing and mitigating risk. Alright. And jumping into some of our objectives. So this is going to be, really what we're talking about about this webinar. The first one is just talking about what is PAGA. How does it impact California specifically, as a as an act within the California, law. After that, talking about where those compliance risk areas are. So you'll you've probably on on top of those in terms of what those are, timekeeping accuracy, mill breaks, rest breaks, how to track those, how to, do proper attestations, what it means to document all of those and and maintain those for for a long term. Third item here, identifying, those same same items. And then fourth is, the same as well. So we'll be covering a lot of the the same topics but in different slices. I really just discussing all the different parts of our, of of what it means, different topics within bag itself. So throughout this webinar, we're gonna have a few poll questions, and so we'll get right into our first poll question with how would you rate your understanding of your company's obligations under CAGA. Strong, meaning you fully understand what's required. You're ahead of the game. You got it. Moderate is, you know, the basics, but you still kinda want a little bit more clarity of how to comply. Limited is that maybe you heard of it, but you really don't know what it is. And then none is that this is all completely news new to me. So we'll give you a couple seconds here to submit your responses. And I'm sure the responses will vary based upon your makeup as a company. The ones that are larger and perhaps have their own, legal counsel as well, could market that as strong, versus, what it means to to not have that ability to to reach out or to have somebody that is external, and as needed in terms of legal counsel. So think about that when you're selecting your choices. Alright. And looks like we have the results here. Most, the bulk, the majority is limited. I've heard of Paga, but don't know the details. Great thing. You are in the right spot. It's a something that you've been alerted to. You need to figure out what it means before it gets to you, is is hopefully where you're at. In the moderate and strong, that's, indicating, like I said, that that you have legal counsel of your own. You have some, issues or or you've dealt with it, in the past or you're currently dealing with it. None. First time dealing with it, eight twenty four percent of you answered none. Happy to to walk through this and figure out if this is something that's going to affect you. Alright. We'll get right into it. So what is PAGA? So PAGA is specifically in California, and it stands for the Private Attorneys General Act. It was first enacted in two thousand and four. And the real premise behind why it was enacted in two thousand four was because the state of California was really struggling to enforce the labor laws. They have a whole agency called the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, LWDA, and they were struggling to investigate and, and penalize these labor code violations. So in response to that, in order to really hold employers accountable to to labor laws, they implemented PAGA. So PAGA acts as a way for employees to sue their employers on behalf of the state and themselves to recover civil penalties. So really putting the employee as kind of this this private attorney general, whereas in the past, it was the state's private attorney general that would go after, the employers. So really open it up for everybody. So PAGA, applies to any, employer with current or former employees in California. So you may hear that it's a California law, and you may think, oh, well, my my LLC, my corporation, my organization is actually domiciled in Texas or Rhode Island. But if you have employees or or former employees in California, you're still under the purview of PAGA here. So it's it's definitely something to note. So PAGA actually, the reason it's been more circulating in the news is that it was reformed in July of twenty twenty four and really is allegedly to be more employer friendly. There's definitely pieces of it that are definitely employer friendly. But as we'll see, there's some gray areas where, there may still be open up for some litigation. And so this reform actually came about because they were actually going to put, a reform initiative on November ballot in California to completely remove PAGA. So to circumvent that, California's governor, governor Newsom, negotiated some reform provisions with business leaders throughout the state, and that's where we came up with this reform. It's important for us to really get ahead of PAGA. Here, go back to the slide. Yeah. It's important for us to get, PAGA right and really try to figure out the nuances of how to comply with, you know, local labor laws in each state, because other states have tried to push something similar to PAGA. However, they haven't necessarily succeeded yet, but that's not to say they won't succeed in the future. And so I have a a few stats that are not on this slide, but, I thought it's very interesting to, to share with you guys. So the public records, PAGA notices and these claims are public record in the California database. And so you can actually pull these up if you want to. But in the year twenty twenty two, there was roughly about eighty three hundred PAGA notices filed, and that was roughly around thirteen hundred law firms that filed those. Twenty twenty three is right around eighty one hundred PAGA notices filed with roughly nine hundred and fifty law firms. And in twenty twenty four, you'll see that it was ninety about ninety five hundred PAGA notices with eight hundred forty one law firms. So the the purpose of these stats is to show you that there is an a a steady increase in the amount of claims, and there's actually a decrease in the amount of law firms. So we're kinda seeing these law firms kinda make this a niche market where they're really trying to go after some of these employers in California. If you're wondering about year to date, it's right around, like, four thousand, notices filed so far. So on track to maybe be around eight thousand notices or something by the end of the year. So still, still staying in that same tract of eight thousand notices per year. So we'll get into the reform now. So we got the basics down of the packet notice. And so what actually happens is there has to be a labor code violation, and the plaintiff, so the employee, will actually file a written notice to the LWDA to start the whole process of the packet notice. They don't just go straight into a lawsuit. You actually have to file a notice first with the LWDA to then start the whole process. And then the LWDA actually has sixty five days to either not respond to you, to let you know that they're gonna pursue it on their own. And if they don't respond to you or they say they're not gonna pursue the claim, that's when it's free for the employee to then file a lawsuit against the employer. So for the resort form, so this happened in July of twenty twenty four. There were several things that changed within the law, and a lot of them are really focused on the employer. We're gonna go through four basic ones. And one of the biggest ones is the state change in standing. And then we have new and expanded cure provisions, which then leads into an early eval evaluation conference. And then very important are the changes to civil penalties. So there's some caps on the penalties and, ways and circumvent some of these penalties. So we'll get into the first one with, the standing change. But before that, we're gonna hit a poll question. And so the first poll question is gonna be, what's the hardest aspect of labor compliance to consistently track at your company? So these can be meals and rest breaks, start and stop times, overtime hours, attestations and signatures, or simply all the above. So we'll give you about thirty seconds or so to to pick one or, I guess, all of those. Alright. Looks like across the board, we have forty two percent at mill and rest breaks. Really, that's what we've seen, and and I, Forrest, you can confirm if that's really what I know that there's a a number of, reasons why the the PAGA violations can get started, but if that's one of the most commonly occurred ones. I know it's one that I commonly see when talking to our customers and what they're worried about. Yeah. That's a it's not surprising that that is number one, followed by all the above, if not all the above being the first, but that is more or less the most common claim you'll see it in a packet notice, in a packet claim. And, it's really gonna be the the kind of the foundation of the packet notices. So we'll get into this a little bit later, but, you'll see that when these notices and these claims, they're gonna kinda throw in the kitchen sink. So they're gonna throw in a bunch of claims, but we see that meal and rest breaks are gonna kinda be the the underlying, most common commonly thrown in claim. Yeah. And you when I talk to customers as well, that's what the consistent tone is. What are we doing for those meal breaks? How do how do we track them in in the various ways throughout our timekeeping applications? Our second option was all of the above and then a a handful of of, responses for just the b, c, and d options there. Alright. I think we have another one. Just to understand our crowd today, we want to go ahead and and do another quick poll question. At HCSS, we do have our own digital timekeeping system. That would be c. And I'd like to know just what are you doing today? What are you doing in terms of specifically tracking your time and your breaks and what that looks like. Paper timesheets are still an option that you can go through. Spreadsheets, of course, digital timekeeping, and other or not sure are there are four options. And if not a gotcha question, these are all legitimate answers. You can do all these currently. And enforcement said, I mean, currently and still comply with the California laws. Correct? Correct. Alright. Give it a few more seconds and see the responses. Great look here. Eighty three percent using a digital timekeeping system, ten percent as the next option with paper timesheets, and then a few others, with spreadsheets or not sure. So overall, good good balance of what we see across the industry as well. And we'll jump into a little bit more about, across the board, like Forrest said, for any of these solutions, what you need to do really as a company to to work on, that compliance aspect. Alright. I think it's back to you, Forrest. Alright. So we're gonna do the the first major reform, which is standing change. So prior to the reform, the plaintiff in these scenarios is called, with the, with the losses, aggrieved employee. So prior to the reform, an aggrieved employee is basically someone that suffered a labor law violation from that employer, and they're gonna sue on behalf of themselves for that labor violation. So before the reform, what they could also do is kinda tack on a bunch of these claims with it for other former and current employees that may have suffered different violations. So think of it as there's the agreed employee is suing the employer for a violation they felt and then for other violations they did not feel, but for other current and former employees. So as you can see, that floodgate really opens up for litigation. So part of the standing change is now that agreed employee has to suffer all those violations in their claim. So, so it's a it's a big win for employers. It should narrow the scope of the amount of claims, should narrow the scope of the size of the group in in that claim, and it should also help narrow the scope of discovery so you're not having to go through all these other claims that are not related to that one specific aggrieved employee. There's also a statute of limitations now with it. So that aggrieved employee has to suffer that labor law violation within one year. So the statute of limitations now is one year. And so wanted to give you guys just a few examples. So I know as through our first poll, a lot of you may not be familiar with some of the labor laws. But just a few common violations that we see in California are nonpayment of minimum wage and overtime, nonpayment business expenses, and then failure to provide these arrest and meal meal periods and itemized wage statements. So, a lot of options for, for a lawsuit with, the labor code violations. So we'll go to the next one, which is gonna be, the new and expanded cure provisions. So it's a a great change, a big change for for PAGA as well. So it really expands, the labor code violate, the labor code provisions to, to cure. So an employer can now cure by correcting the violation that was alleged by the aggrieved employee, being in compliance with the law. So you are you're fixing that alleged violation, and you're not just leaving it that you you now have an active compliance with that law. And now you're making each aggrieved employee whole. So part of the the cure provisions now is also we've opened it up to, many violations under the labor code that were not previously eligible for the cure. So that can be anything from wage statements, failure to pay, failure to provide rest in in meal time, and failure to pay overtime. So, so big cure provisions here. The exception is the only if the only alleged violation is a wage statement violation, there's a separate cure process for that, and that has to do with more of actually providing a a correct wage statement to the employee. So, so great areas here for the for the, for the the cure provisions. And so we'll move on to kind of plays into the CURE provisions now is the early evaluation conference. So employers with under a hundred employees, if they, within thirty three days of receiving a PAGA notice, they have the option to actually then go file it with the LWDA to talk about a cure proposal of how they're going to actually get over this violation and comply with the law. And so the LWDA can look through, the case with the with the employer and decide if what their proposed cure provisions, if they're sufficient, and if they want to organize a settlement conference. So it's a great way for, especially these small employers, to really circumvent further litigation. So it's enabled. So instead of, going through the full blown litigation of doing discovery and actually going through the whole trial work, they can actually cut it off here with the settlement, within thirty three days of the of the packet notice. If you are an employer with over a hundred employees or if you're an employer with under a hundred employees but you didn't choose to go with, that settlement option with LWDA, once you're in litigation, you can actually request a stay of any civil action and request this what's called an early evaluation conference from the trial court. So the trial court, there will be an evaluator. So not not not a judge, but an evaluator that will, go through and synthesize the case with you. They're gonna look at the the merit and the strengths and weaknesses of the plaintiff's claims as well as any of the employer's defenses. They're also gonna look at all the alleged violations and if that employer did in fact cure them. And so, again, with this, it's it's a great way to circumvent the full blown lit litigation and save, you know, time and money and resources, if you're able to do this early evaluation conference and be able to reach, reach a great settlement. And that settlement, is is gonna it has to be approved by the l w LWDA. So it can't just be a settlement the employer reaches with the employee itself. And so we'll move on to the changes to civil penalties. So there's actually a lot of changes to civil penalties. We're not gonna go through all of them. This is even this isn't even a full exhaustive list of all of them, but we're gonna go through some of these. So the big thing here is that an employer can actually cap their penalties by showing they've taken what's called all reasonable steps to comply with the law. And we'll get to that in the next slide of what that really entails. But if an employer can show that they've taken all reasonable steps to comply with the law, they will be, able to experience these caps. There's a fifteen percent cap on penalties if the employer took those reasonable steps before receiving the PAGA notice. If they received the PAGA notice and they took all those reasonable steps within sixty days of receiving that notice, their their liability will be capped at thirty percent. And then throughout that, they've made some some great adjustments for, some limitation on subsequent penalties, these derivative penalties. So if if they're suing for the underlying, penalty, they can't just tack on all these extra kinda ancillary penalties to it. There's caps on isolated errors. So if it's just this one off that is really remote, they can they can, also cap that. And then they've actually really helped for employers that have weekly pay periods instead of biweekly or fortnightly, however you wanna look at it. So prior, that means an employee an employer, if they paid every week, would be subject to vast amounts of penalties because they were had, they could have a wage violation every week. So to circumvent that, they now have done, like, a fifty percent, reduction on those penalties so that way it is in line with every two week pay period. And if you think it's all is benefit for the employer, they did help the employee out, with a change of the actual penalties they receive. And so the when an employee, an agreed employee wins a a a case or a suit with with Paga, they'll actually get thirty five percent of the fines and penalties assessed to the employer, sixty five percent going back to the state. So it was seventy five twenty five before that. So employer an employee went from twenty five percent before the reform to now twenty five thirty five percent now. And so for us, kind of what I'm hearing across the board is with the reforms in July twenty four, we've gone from throwing the kitchen sink at the employers, to maybe throwing, for a bad analogy, just the bathwater, just the kitchen sink water. And then the the the civil penalties have changed to be more balanced out for the employer. It does add some back to the employee as well, but, ultimately, more leaning in favor of the employer. Is that a good summary so far? It yes. So there there's arguments for that. It still has, not open, but still has the floodgates for litigation, still open because these cure provisions, are still, you know, they're new, so people are still trying to figure out how to comply with them and and how to actually cure, some of these violations. And, also, the time frame is really quick. So if you look at these time frames, it's, you know, thirty three days. It's sixty days. So it's a very quick turnaround whenever you have to go assess which violations there were and try to figure out not just what violations there were, but also how do we cure and then continue on after that. So, so there's still it's still right for some some litigation Yeah. Good call. Which is why we're see we're seeing the the number of cases not really dwindling down as, you know, what you would hope. Yep. So now getting into what is what is reasonable steps mean. So this is really where it comes to, like, how can you guys comply? How can it how can an employer comply and mitigate risk as much as possible? So California says the all reasonable steps are conducting periodic payrolls payroll audits and taking action in response to those audits. So the the key here too is you gotta take action in it. So when you do those payroll audits, you're looking for, are you keeping accurate time? Are you doing off the clock work or not off the clock work? Are you paying overtime? Are you handling accurate wage statements? And, you gotta check your rounding policy. Because for these meal breaks in California specifically, you can't round. You have to give them the full thirty minutes. So there's there's rounding issues too that you need to be cognizant of. And so when you do those audits, make sure that if there's any action items open for you, make sure you take those and take those quickly. It'll help you as you go through the cure process in these early evaluation conferences. So the other thing we can do is disseminating lawful written policies. So this could be wage and hour policies, any compliance posters that you may have, or posting them in your employee handbook and getting those employee handbook signed. So making sure that everyone is aware of the requirements. And then, really, the next thing is training supervisors on the labor code. So knowing, about the wages, making sure people clock in and clock out, take their rest breaks, take their meal breaks, and so making sure that those supervisors are aware of what is required as an employer. And the final piece of it is kinda relays into that a little bit, but it's taking appropriate corrective action with regards to supervisors. So if there's any noncompliance or issues, make sure you take corrective action and document that corrective action. So you wanna make sure you always document everything so there's paper trail to prove the compliance. Again, that helps you with the cure period and these early evaluation conferences. So furthermore, you know, that's prescriptive from the law. Like, what what does it look like to comply is all reasonable steps to comply the law. But we throw in some a few more action items that will help you as an employer mitigate risk, and that's making sure that you really do have accurate real time, tracking of hours. So I think it was, like, eighty three percent of the people on this call, use the software, and that's that's fantastic. It's probably the easiest thing because you can have great record retention with that. You have reliability with the software. You can pull it at any moment. And so, especially when you're you're going through, the packet notice and the the conferences and the litigation, it's gonna be way quicker to find those those records that you need than going through paper records or even Excel spreadsheets or whatever it may be. So with that, make sure you do regular audits. So that's part of one of the steps of the reasonable steps, prescribed by Pago. But with those audits, make sure they're regular, not just once a maybe not even once a year, more often than that, and that you're you're really trying to find any corrections you need to take, any corrective actions, and, then train employees and supervisors on compliance departments. And like I said, doing all this really gives you the nice ability to demonstrate compliance in the event of any investigation, in the event of any lawsuits. And then finally, we'll come up with, something that, is very applicable for for our crowd here is this construction industry exemption. Already existed, and it has now been extended through July first of twenty thirty eight. And before you think that you're just off the hook entirely, it's very narrowly focused. It's only focused on the union employees that are covered by a collective bargaining agreement. So I wanna reemphasize that again. There's a construction industry exemption, but it's only for union employees under a collective bargaining agreement. And that collective it's not even just that simple. That collective bargaining agreement has to have several specific conditions within that agreement for it to apply. And what that means then, if they meet all those requirements, that employee under that CBA cannot file a a PAGA lawsuit or a PAGA claim or a PAGA lawsuit against the employer. So here's a list of the items that are required in the CBA. We'll go through all of them, but you'll see letter f, expressly waives packet requirements in clear and ambiguous terms. So, so it is something to think about and and to know, especially if you're in the construction industry, which most of you, if not all of you, are in the construction industry, knowing that, you know, you don't have to necessarily worry about claims from union employees covered by CBA. Alright. And, to start going downhill past that, so thank you, Forrest, for the broad coverage of what goes into Paga and especially the reforms as well. Knowing what that actually means for our customers, I think, is critical at this juncture. Now we're gonna jump into that software side of things. Let's see if we can still see our slides. For us to go ahead and mute as well? Yes. It did. Okay. Please hold for some technical difficulty. There we go. So we're just gonna talk about the software side of, of what that means. So, on Forrest's last slide there, just indicating that, going with the software does allow you to have that ability to to really show during those those, that quick time period that that you are compliant or that you have compliance processes in place. The first big one, is minimizing those manual errors in time tracking. So on that day to day basis, what does it mean for you to have hundreds of employees entering in their hours? The hundreds of employees that are, eligible for this type of, time tracking. Align them to actually into that information on themselves or that supervisor role, are they entering them on behalf? But allowing you to minimize those errors as much as possible. And those are errors both in terms of the entry and collection of that data as well as just in, say, the handwriting being incorrect. Right? So at the end of it, the employee, of course, I'm gonna say my understanding from talking to customers. If I say anything wrong, jump in. But the the the employee has that ability to correct the errors on their own, when they send in the time, and that's an important part of it. The real time data capture for start of day, mill breaks, and end of day, very important part of that, just relating back into those manual errors, and things like that. When you actually have when when the actual event occurred, that really helps you to to work through any of those, compliance issues. We talk about start of day, end of day, and mill breaks. Those are really the biggest ones when it comes to the, to the time. Kind of rolling up into that as well, showing the total time worked on the day, during that attestation and signature side. That's an important part of the, the the workflow that you can get to there. When we look at our customers and the attestations that they have, they really do have three different questions. One is usually in regards to safety. Did they leave the work safely? That's an important question to ask for a number of reasons. The other one is around, brake tracking. Did they take the required break in mills, as given to them or offered? And then usually one more, in a similar vein. I would just allowing you to ask those questions and to help you to, to move forward, with any of these lawsuits. So the the case law that that I looked at and, again, I'm not not the lawyer for us this year. But the attestations and signatures were an important part, invalidating and and pushing back against some of those public claims. Yeah. Those ad stations, those are actually required. So for meal breaks and and rest breaks. So it's a requirement. So if you're using a software, that's a really great way to be able to actually get those ad ad stations more a little easier and also be able to really demonstrate that you collected those and have those at a single source. Yep. And those signatures, that's on that total time, comment from earlier. How much did you work how many hours are you going to pay for essentially at the end of the day, and just getting a signature. Any changes from the supervisor would need a signature as well. And so that's just some something to say. This is how I'm gonna be submitting it. This is I I understand as an employee, how much I'm gonna get paid for at the end of this pay cycle. Next one here enables audits with detailed immutable time records. That's, immutable is is the term, from the California law. That just means it does not have the ability to be edited. It can be revised, and so you look at, revisions as something different than edits. But once it is sent in or once it's submitted, that is now traceable and anything anything that's been revised or changed has that audit trail to to back it up. That way you understand exactly how the time has if it has changed from the time of submission by that employee all the way up in through payroll, whenever the hours are actually, completed and then sent out, through the payroll system. And last but not least, the software, should support that compliance with how labor laws are changing, and with PAGA reforms. Forrest, you specifically mentioned rounding earlier. That wasn't that was an interesting one that came about as a result of a lawsuit. I think it was with nurses, but applicable to anybody, across the board. And so something like that, whenever it changes, does it does the system change with that as the as the laws are interpreted? That was something that we did, and I remember the change a few years ago, quite a few years ago now. But just the ability to understand what is needed out of that system, the compliance needs, and and rolling with those changes. Alright. And jumping into just eight CSS and what we do in terms of timekeeping specifically. Again, eight CSS and our heavy job product specifically is, kind of a a crossroads between you have the timekeeping side of it, which is what we're talking about today, and then that cost tracking and cost management side. And so we managed to do both really through our time card, that we've had for quite some time. So we're just gonna talk about that timekeeping side, though. The first important side and and what I talked about just now, we did tailor it for construction workflows. What does it mean to gather time against those specific activities, against those specific, cost codes as we call them in our system? Reporting on all the information, such as productivity, any tags that you need to do in order to, create new issues, understand if it was a weather delay, and things like that. So that's the cross section of timekeeping and construction is what we've done in our time card itself to, allow you to still, work with with the needs of compliance in terms of how to track the employee times, but then also to work with what you need as a profitable company. Right? So how do I make sure that my projects are not going to, to to how how do I make sure all my projects are profitable, by using the correct solution? After that, we're looking at mobile and field friendly. This is primarily employees in the field that we're talking about. And so whenever we talk about the importance of needing something in the field and it being field friendly, that is at really the top of our importance as a company and should be at the top of your importance, as a as an employer. And because at the end of it, it is tracking those hours inside and in real time, as Forrest mentioned earlier to help you to manage that compliance side of it. On all the information to capture, again, just the the solution, the timekeeping solution should match functionality, with what those laws say. We've talked a lot about California laws in particular. But if you look kind of across the board, there's, several states that that will have very similar, laws in place. The reason why we're talking about California Day is because of PAGA specifically. Again, that's the point of this, this webinar. But if you kinda look across the board, there are similar, laws in in multiple states if you work in multiple states. And so making sure that you can create a system that complies with all of those, mill and rest rigs being some of the most important ones as we've seen as well from our survey today. And most important, tracking it is is only as important as, getting them paid properly, because if you track everything properly and and don't get them paid properly, you you still are going to have an issue, at that crossroads. So making sure that your timekeeping solution does integrate with your payroll system. If you have a HR system, the ability to both ingest that data and bring it into the system and make sure that you have all the necessary information for that employee, name, etcetera, and a code, some of the most important ones, and then the ability to then export it out. So that way you're linking it in back into that ERP, into that payroll system, and getting the the right dollars in the right hands. And just to reiterate again, the PAGA is like a is think of, like, an arm of the labor laws. So every state has labor laws, and so the labor laws are ubiquitous around the US. So there's also federal labor laws as well. And so we're specifically talking about PAGA, which is the ability for, agreed employees to submit claims under the PAGA so you can actually seek legal redress or remedies outside of PAGA through the typical court, court procedures. Yeah. The the arm is is, good caught, and it's sits, I'll I'll almost call it above. The the labor laws force is kinda how I think about it and and when I'm thinking about it because, you still have all the needs of enforcing what the actual laws themselves are, and it's just it's, like I said, above it in my mind, to to enforce them in a different different way than what other states are doing today. Alright. Let's go ahead and do, one last poll here. Are you currently exploring tools or systems to improve timekeeping and compliance? Yes. We are evaluating options. Not yet. No. And, no, it's not a priority right now. Wait for those to come in. While we're waiting for that to come in, feel free to reach out to to, myself and and Forrest for any other questions that you may have as a follow-up. This is something that we want to help to ensure that that you're in the right path here. So feel free to to reach out to myself, andrew dot faller at h c s s dot com for anything that you have, any follow ups, where we can point you in the right direction. As as you navigate this this, new environment from July, it's it's a tough topic. It's it's something that's difficult to navigate through. We can help you to to guide you in that direction and point you in the right direction, tell you what other people have done as well. Hopefully, that can help you to to navigate through all these different items. And if you're looking for for, compliance advice and a little more legal advice, I'd be I would say go find your own attorney. As much as I would love to work with you and work for you, I'm an HSSO attorney. So if you are looking for different ways for your own specific instance, your own specific organization, definitely go find, local counsel to help you really navigate the ins and outs of of labor laws. Good call out forced. Yeah. We, we all we all work for something. Right? And so forced doesn't work for free either. Alright. Let's go ahead and, go into our wrap up here. Alright. Key takeaways. First one, Paga impacts construction employers directly, really because of the type of employees that they have. Understanding what that law is, is one of that first levels, and then understanding what, Paga is, is really essential because that is where your legal exposure is going to exist. After that, timekeeping, breaks, and documentation are all top compliance risks under PAGA. From our survey, we saw that, a lot of struggles with that mill break tracking, especially. Overtime does not seem to be as as big of an issue, but does still fall under, the the purview of what you can be hit with in terms of of PAGA, lawsuits. And kind of adding into that one from from the webinar that the the recent changes are are more beneficial for you, which is a great thing, but does not limit the amount of lawsuits, under PAGA that we are expecting to see as that trend continues. Third big takeaway here, accurate time tracking and regular audits as well as that retention of the, data, which is an important aspect that we didn't cover necessarily in this one. But re retaining that data long term, is a key, in reducing that risk of costly claims. The the limit of time to that one year, has helped that, but I don't think that the retention of data has changed in any way. Forrest, is it four years? Is that correct? I have to double check on that one. Okay. Yeah. So so the retention of data, that's still a concern. Again, validate that, to make sure that that you're compliant with that. And the time tracking tools, will help you with that. Absolutely. And on that note, digital tools can help to streamline that compliance, makes it easier to manage those labor laws, helps you within that that short time frame, that remedy time frame, to show you to show the, the the governing bodies, what what you what you are doing today, to manage that compliance. And at the end of it, you are working in these complex construction environments, lots of moving parts, lots of things going in the ground, lots of things coming out. So what can you do in turn in digital tools to make that easier really for that field is the big focus, here at HCSS. And it it is for yours. Nailed it. I know a few things. Not a lawyer, but but I I've I've talked to a few, and I don't know. I talked to a lot of customers. Alright. Jumping into q and a. We had some come in while we were going through, the presentation. So I think most of these are going to be directed back towards you, Forrest. What does a cure require? So there's tip like, there's two types of cures. So if if you remember, there's one if it's the claim is specifically for wage statement violations. So for that one, it's, again, these are all prescribed under PACS. So you go go reference the law for more information. But you do provide a fully compliant, wage statement to each of the aggrieved employees, for each of the pay periods that the violation existed. And then, you also provide written notice of the corrected information to each one of those aggrieved employees. If it's outside of the wage statement, you have to correct the alleged violation. Again, this goes back into, like, what are the the, compliant like, reasonable steps to comply with laws. And then you have to make sure you make each aggrieved employee whole. It's kind of like a legal term of art that we use, but making sure that everything is put back in its right place for that employee. And if they're owed wages, you have to, pay the unpaid wages plus a seven percent interest, any liquidated dam damages that are, set by the by a statute in California, and then any reasonable attorney's fees and costs. So, those are just the real the the really big basics of natural cure part of, under Baga. I think we might have covered this one, but just to make sure, how does an employee bring up a lawsuit? How does it start a lawsuit, with Paga? So to start so you can actually just go straight into court proceedings. So if, if an employee feels like they're an aggrieved employee, they have to submit a notice to, the LWDA to even start the whole process. And then the LWDA has to decide if they wanna pursue the claim on their own or if they wanna relinquish it over to the employee for the employee to then go through, the court proceedings. And what's the what's the difference between PAGA enforcement versus, enforcement for traditional labor law? Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely get blurred. But the the difference really here is that for PAGA, you're actually, you're suing on behalf of the state, whereas, if you went through traditional, law enforcement through the legal, the legal process, you're sitting on behalf of yourself or the state who's on behalf of the state. And on top of that, there's a lot of nuances and differences throughout the whole process. So meaning that you don't even go fully into, the court proceedings with PAGA. You go through you can go through settlement, those early evaluation conferences, and, the remedies are also different. For PAGA, the agreed employees getting a share of the civil penalties, wherein, the traditional, court proceeding, you're getting remedies for any damages that you you, received. Also, you can look for, like, injunctions and temporary restraining orders, that kind of stuff. So different remedies as well. Perfect. Alright. Switching into some of the, HCSS functionality. How do we view the employee answers when they submit at the end of the day? So within the the HCSS field time card, there are multiple ways to get the employees to answer. The first one is is what we call our My Field application. Once the time card is submitted, this is for free for everybody. The My Field application has some more functionality for but for just signatures, we allow anybody to have access to this functionality where they can sign for those, sign for those attestations at the end of the day. So once they are signed, they flow into the time card, that they can be be submitted or submitted on on the time card itself. If you have concerns about your employees using their own personal phone, there's some provisions for that as well. They can sign those questions on just the time card itself. At the end of the day, walking up to that foreman, to that supervisor, and answering those questions and signing them, to to record them. As for where they flow into the system, everything flows into our our heavy job manager, functionality. We have a number of reports, that you can view that one. My personal favorite one is the employee details report. It It allows you to really see across the board all the information that was entered in and to see that one. We also have a specific signature questions one, which would probably be the best one, honestly. The signature questions report, it shows, the signatures and if they're valid or not. Again, what we talked about, a signature is essentially invalidated if there's a change to the total time for that employee that the employee did not sign for. So you can move around hours just fine. So if they've worked past eight hours and then you'd be marked as overtime, that's okay to do within the time card system. But if the total hours ever change, that's whenever that signature is automatically invalidated, and our signature report will show that. Yeah. What about the go ahead. I'll answer this one. What about, Nicole's question? What about employees that wanna waive their meal break in California? Is it still okay if they sign a release acknowledgment? Yes. Yeah. You you definitely want them to sign some kind of acknowledgment that they understood and that they, agree that they were given the full thirty minute lunch break. And that's even if they cut back, like, let's say they come back twenty five minutes before that thirty minute. You definitely wanna have, again, documented proof that they were given that and that they volitionally forgo like, had forgotten the, thirty minute lunch break. Yeah. And, Sean, for your question regarding, the the functionality versus the a paid add on, feel free to reach out to me directly. I can walk you through what we have as part of our core heavy job offering. That is that is what we can look at for again, signatures is a part of the core offering. The at the questions, we call them, signature questions. Attestations is the legal translation. That's part of our core offering. The ability to to do that in both the time card and for free on the MyField app are all part of the core offering. Where we start differenting is is in what the employees do in terms of clock in and clock out. And I can work with you, and we can discuss what those differences are. But at the end of it, as far as, the ability to actually do timekeeping and to, manage all the different aspects of compliance, our core system does does allow all does have all the parts, of the system to to do that. And I think that is going to be it. It looks like there's some in the actual chat as well. Oh. And in case you guys didn't see the I answered a question earlier about, the construction exemption, provided a link to the actual text of the law. So that's also in the the q and a if anybody wants to see the actual text of, the the construction exemption. All the we had this one that came out earlier about, we so we will provide a a recording of this. So if you sign up for the webinar, you will receive that as well. Our team is working to determine if we can get just the slides out as well. But if if we are able to, it'll be part of that final email, and you'll see it there. At a minimum, you will have a recording of this webinar emailed to you after. I'll answer Susie Susie's question is if you receive a packet claim and you're able to prove that none of the allegations are factual, at what point does that case get dropped? And so that actually would, there's a couple different ways, but it could be as early as the cure period. So during that cure period so once you receive that notice, you'll have that cure period to then, address that and prove that they're, that it is factually incorrect or, again, that you actually have already cured whatever the violations are. And so it could be dropped at that time, if the LWDA agrees. If you're already in the court proceedings, you know, you'd have to go through, the court had to dismiss the case then. Or there's different, you know, there's different legal, remedies for or different legal proceedings for factual, and corrections kind of stuff like that. So, typically, it's done through that cure that cure period. Alright. Did we miss anything? Just quick validation from for us and from our team. I think that looks like all the questions so far. And, Susie, if I didn't answer your question fully, feel free to message back. Yeah. But with that, let's go ahead and and, conclude this webinar. Again, if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to me, andrew dot faller at h c s s dot com, just like it's spelled out on this screen. And more than happy to to point you in the right direction. Again, this is a tough topic. We wanted to make sure that, we gave you, a way to navigate some of these these tricky things and, tricky tricky topics when it comes to both California law and what it means to interpret the the vagueness of it and and PAGA and what the recent changes mean for you as well. So that concludes it from my side. Force anything, to to end them with? The only thing is that that, that QR code there will take you to more information about, HCSS's blogs for PAGA and just more general information about PAGA, via the HCSS website. Alright. Well, with that, we will go ahead and wrap it up. Thank you, everybody, for attending. And, again, reach out if you have any other follow ups.