Here’s What You Need to Know About Philadelphia’s Fair Workweek Rules

1. Fair Workweek regulations are coming into force across the nation. These ‘predictive scheduling’ laws aim to promote flexibility for shift workers and protect against unfair scheduling practices.

The rules are complex and fines for violations are heavy.

In Philly, the rules come into play in January 2020 and apply to full-service restaurants and fast-food operators with more than 250 employees and 30 or more locations worldwide, including franchisees. Among other headaches, shifts must be planned 10 days in advance (increasing to 14 days in 2021) and records must be immaculate to avoid costly fines.

In 2017, the owner of two outlets at the city’s food hub, Reading Terminal Market, agreed to pay over $660,000 to settle a case brought by the Labor Department. The alleged violations included not paying workers the appropriate overtime pay and not keeping proper records.

This example shows how important it is to keep your records accurate and stay up-to-date with regulations. The fact regulations vary significantly state-by-state makes it all the more difficult for restaurant groups who operate across multiple cities.

Many operators have put dedicated finance teams in place to identify violations and deal with penalties to ensure compliance. But this approach deals with the symptoms of the problem rather than the cause. 

What is needed is a holistic solution that tackles the root cause while also mitigating risks throughout the business, enabling all departments to consistently and proactively work together. 

Giving managers the power to use predictive scheduling effectively, minimizes violations and pushes any violation data straight to payroll to be dealt with in accordance with the law.

The result is greater efficiency and less stress for managers, more flexibility and protection for employees, and better results for the business – not only in terms of happy workers but in costs saved and embarrassment avoided.

Let’s take a look at the rules and penalties for Philadelphia and then how Harri’s system deals with the many challenges they pose to restaurant operators in the city.

Regulations and Penalties for Philadelphia

Good Faith Estimate

The employer must provide the new hire with a written Good Faith Estimate of their work schedule over a typical 90-day period. The Good Faith Estimate should include:

• The median number of hours the employee is expected to work in a workweek. 
• Whether the employee is expected to work on-call or not.
• The days of the week the employee can expect to work and expect to have off.

The employer must revise the Good Faith Estimate when there is a significant change.

Right to Rest

An employee may decline, without penalty, any work hours scheduled: 

• Less than nine hours after the end of the previous day’s shift.
• During the nine hours following the end of a shift that spanned two days. 

The employee may consent to work such shifts. This consent must be provided in writing, either for each such shift or for multiple shifts, and may be revoked by written communication at any time. 

The employer is liable to pay $40 in compensation for shifts worked during this rest period.

Advanced Notice on Scheduling

All schedules must be posted, whether or not an employee is scheduled to work that week, at the workplace at least 10 days before the scheduled shifts. This period increases to 14 days on 1 January 2021.

An employee may decline to work any hours or additional shifts not included in this posted work schedule. An employee may voluntarily consent to work such hours. This must be recorded in writing.

Changes to Schedules

The employer must also provide notice of any proposed changes to the schedule as soon as possible and prior to the change taking effect. 

They must revise the written work schedule to include changes within 24 hours.

Penalties for Changes to the Date or Time of a Work Shift (Predictability Pay)

If the employer adds time to a work shift or changes the date, time or location of a work shift under the following conditions, they are liable for the corresponding penalties:

1. No change in the number of hours:
   • Pay one hour at the employee’s regular rate of pay.
2. Additional hours:
   • Pay one hour at the employee’s regular rate of pay.
3.  Subtracted hours:
   • Pay half the regular rate of pay for the hours that were subtracted.
4. A shift is canceled:
   • Pay half the regular rate of pay for the hours that were lost.

Access to Hours for Existing Employees

Employers are required to offer more hours as they become available to existing employees before hiring new staff or contractors externally. 

1. The employer must provide written notice of available work shifts for at least 72 hours (unless a shorter period is necessary in order for the work to be performed). 
2. The notice must: 
   • Be posted in English and in the primary languages of the employees at the workplace.
   • Be posted in a conspicuous location at the workplace that is readily accessible and visible to all employees. 
   • Also be provided electronically to each employee if the employer normally communicates scheduling information with employees in this way.
   • Include a description of the position and its required qualifications, the schedule of available shifts, the length of time the employer anticipates requiring coverage for the additional hours, and the process by which employees may notify the employer of their desire to work the offered shifts.

The employer may provide the notice concurrently at the location where the shifts described in the notice will be worked, at other locations, and to external candidates.

Employers must not retaliate by, for example, dismissing or disciplining employees who either request or decline more hours.

On-Call Protection

If a scheduled on-call shift is canceled the employer must pay half the employee’s regular rate of pay per hour, for any scheduled hours.

Exceptions

The employer is not liable to penalties under the following conditions:

1. An employee requests a shift change by written communication.
   • Including voluntary additions or subtractions of hours initiated by the employee, the use of sick leave, vacation leave, or other leave policies offered by the employer. 
2. A schedule change is the result of a shift swap between employees.
   • Subject to any employer policy regarding required conditions for employees to exchange shifts. 
3. The employer’s operations cannot begin or continue due to any of the following: 
   • Threats to employees or the employer’s property.
   • The failure of a public utility or the shutdown of public transportation.
   • A fire, flood, or other natural disaster.
   • A state of emergency declared by the President of the United States, Governor of the state of Pennsylvania, or Mayor of the city.
   • Severe weather conditions that disrupt transportation or pose a threat to employee safety. 
4. An employee begins or ends work no more than twenty minutes before or after the scheduled start or end time of the shift.
5. An employee volunteers to work additional hours in response to a mass written communication from the employer about the availability of additional hours, under the following conditions:
   • The mass communication is only used for additional hours resulting from another employee being unable to work the scheduled hours.
   • The communication makes clear that accepting such hours is voluntary.
   • The employee has the right to decline such hours.
6. Employee hours are subtracted due to termination of employment.
7. Changes are made to the posted work schedule within 24 hours.
8. The covered employer subtracts hours from an employee’s work schedule for disciplinary reasons.
   • Provided the employer documents this in writing.
9. A ticketed event, due to circumstances that are outside the employer’s control and after the employer has posted the work schedule, is canceled, scheduled, rescheduled, postponed, delayed, increases in expected attendance by 20% or more, or increases in duration.
10. A hotel banquet event is scheduled, due to circumstances that are outside the employer’s control, after the employer provides the posted work schedule with the required advance notice.

Harri’s Intelligent Scheduling 

Harri’s intelligent scheduling system automatically keeps operators up-to-date with regulations, even across multiple jurisdictions. It helps you not only to actively comply with regulations, but also to use predictive scheduling to improve your business.

Here’s a rundown of the main features.

Good Faith Scheduling Support

The system includes the following features to make employees aware of the Good Faith Schedule during onboarding:

• The automatically generated Good Faith Estimate document provides new hires with a clear schedule in accordance with the local laws.
• This is seamlessly integrated into the onboarding process for review and e-signature by the new hire. 

Direct Shift Swaps

Harri’s Hot Fill system allows employees to exchange shifts directly without employer involvement. The peer-to-peer shift exchange does not violate the above rules on shift swaps based on pay rate and overtime thereby avoiding late-change penalties.

Hot Fill – “Uber for your employees”

Here’s how it works:

1. An employee is unable to attend work and they release the shift.
2. Other employees have indicated they wish to work on that day if a shift becomes available (note, they are not “on-call”).
3. The system alerts these employees via SMS and push notification. 
4. The first employee to accept gets the shift. 
5. The manager on duty is notified of the employee’s ETA and distance from work.

This system offers more flexibility for employees and makes it far easier for managers to oversee a shift swap, all while avoiding costly late-change penalties.

Calculation of Right to Rest Compensation Payment

The Right to Rest regulation ensures employees adequate rest between shifts. Harri helps managers to comply by alerting them if this rule is violated when the schedule is created, or any time after it is created, so they can proactively make changes to the schedule.

Manager Alert for Penalties Related to Schedule Changes 

Managers have the ability to define compensation rules for changes after the advance notice period. Shift change premium pay is indicated on the schedule itself and included in the total wage cost calculations.

This means managers are fully aware of the cost impact of schedule changes before they put them in place so they are able to plan and make strategic decisions accordingly. It also makes it easy for the finance department to calculate the costs and pay the right amount to the employee.

Predictive Scheduling Premium Reporting

This feature provides managers with reports indicating, in detail, all the premium payments resulting from schedule changes. These can then be passed seamlessly to the finance department where they can be processed.

They can also be analyzed and scrutinized by management so that key decisions can be made on the company-wide scheduling policy to avoid future fines.

Make Sure Your Business is Protected

The best way to ensure compliance, at scale and across states and cities, is to use a holistic system designed for the purpose.

Harri’s smart scheduling tools simplify every stage of the process, dealing with the cause of the problem in order to minimize violations and streamline communication between departments, managers, and employees.

To see how you can use the system to protect your business and lead a happy, better-rested team, get started with Harri’s smart scheduling tools.