Oh the weather outside is frightful … No, seriously, it’s actually dangerous here in Chicago. Since much of the city seems to be on lock-down today as we all try not to freeze to death, this seems like a good time to review the rules relating to employee pay during weather-related shut-downs. For non-exempt employees, the rule is pretty simple: Unless you have promised to do otherwise, you only have to pay non-exempt employees for…

Back in 2008, Illinois enacted what at the time must have seemed like a relatively obscure law to address privacy concerns associated with biometric information – the Biometric Information Privacy Act or “BIPA”. At the time, biometric devices existed, but they weren’t terribly common. Today, many of us carry a sophisticated fingerprint reader or face scanner in our pockets, and many businesses have adopted biometric security for everything from company phones and computers to timekeeping…

The idea seems so simple: Instead of carefully tracking how much time each employee takes off during the year, we all agree to treat one another as professional, responsible adults, and take off whatever time we need consistent with getting our work done. That’s the idea behind unlimited vacation or PTO policies, and it does seem great in theory. Employees get flexibility. Employers don’t have to book accrued vacation or PTO or worry themselves about…

As the holiday lights start to fade, we come to one of the most anticipated times of the year – bonus season! Such a happy time. Who doesn’t love getting a bonus, and what employer doesn’t like rewarding good performance with some extra monetary recognition? Bonuses are great, but keep in mind that they also carry some legal obligations. In the case of non-exempt employees, that might include paying additional overtime based on your bonus…

Q. We use the tip credit for servers who work in our restaurant. When service is slow, we ask our servers to pitch in with other jobs around the restaurant, like sweeping up the dining room and cleaning the restroom. Can we still take the tip credit for time that our servers spend working on these tasks? A. Short answer: it depends. Long answer: Specifically, it depends on whether the extra duties assigned to your servers…

Q. Our company’s busy season is coming up, meaning we will be asking employees to work longer hours. Our non-exempt employees will all receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Some of them will actually end up earning more per week than some exempt employees. We would like to address this by offering extra pay to our exempt employees who work extended hours during the busy season. Can we…

There’s nothing like a looming deadline to prompt action. Back in August, Governor Rauner signed into law an amendment to the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act that, for the first time, requires Illinois employers to reimburse employees for reasonable expenditures or losses required in the course of their employment duties and that primarily benefit the employer. Because the new law takes effect January 1, 2019, we’ve been receiving quite a few questions from employers…