January 11th, 2024, Release Notes: HS| Labor 5.84: Reason Codes for GFE and RS, RS Consent for Baseline Hours, Access to Hours

Summary

Select the release feature from the table below to be taken directly to that section of the release note.

Release date for all features: January 11th, 2024

Reason Codes for Regular Schedules and Good Faith Estimates

• Enabled by default? - Yes
• Set up by customer admin? - No
• Enable via support ticket? - No
• Affects configuration or data? - Yes
• Roles affected: - All employees at companies using Regular Schedules and/or Good Faith Estimate. 

What's Changing?

A reason Code is now required when creating a new Regular Schedule or Good Faith Estimate for all employees at any stores utilizing these fair workweek scheduling options. 

Reason for the Change

To give managers the ability to categorize why a change is taking place from a pre-defined list of options. Additionally the Reason Codes for Regular Schedules can be configured to bypass the consent workflow for instances where employee consent is not required according to the New York City Fair Work Week ordinance. 

For example, a Disciplinary reason code can be configured to bypass the consent workflow, and the employee will instead receive an acknowledgement outlining the Regular Schedule changes.

Customers Affected

All customer using Regular Schedules and/or Good Faith Estimates.

Release Note Info/Steps

In the ASC, Scheduling > Reason Codes has been updated to allow reason codes to be configured for Predictability Pay (includes other Pay Exceptions such as minimum time and split shift), Regular Schedules, and/or Good Faith Estimates.  All previously existing reason codes were automatically configured as Use for Predictability Pay.

When configuring a Reason Code checking the “Use as a reason for a new Regular Schedule” or “Use as a reason for a new Good Faith Estimate” options will enable the new fair workweek specific reason codes for use on the Regular Schedules or Good Faith Estimates creation pages.

“Use as a reason for a new Regular Schedule” has an additional option of “Does not require employee consent” when enabled. This option allows the Regular Schedule consent workflow to be bypassed when a reason code is selected when this option is enabled.

The Reason Code selected by the manager when creating a new Regular Schedule or Good Faith Estimate has been added to all consent and acknowledgement workflow forms and views, as well as all Regular Schedule and Good Faith Estimate forms or reports.

Regular Schedules Consent for Baseline Hours

• Enabled by default? - No
• Set up by customer admin? - No
• Enable via support ticket? - No
• Affects configuration or data? - No
• Roles affected: - Managers and Employees using Regular Schedules 

What's Changing?

This change introduces a new Regular Schedule consent option to help conform with New York City's 15% of baseline hours rule. 

Reason for the Change

Previously there were two Regular Schedule consent options, Acknowledge Only, and Always require consent. This new option gives clients the ability to define an acceptable threshold for the reduction of hours over a range of time as outlined in the New York City Fair Work Week ordinance. 

Customers Affected

Quick Serve customers in New York City using Regular Schedule functionality. 

Release Note Info/Steps

Pay Exceptions Rule Sets are configured in the ASC under Time & Attendance. 

The new Regular Schedule consent is :Require if new weekly hours are less than ##% of the highest weekly hours over the last ## weeks. 

There are customizable variables for the number weekly hours and number weeks. The default values are 15% and 52 weeks. 

Access to Hours

• Enabled by default? - No
• Set up by customer admin? - Yes
• Enable via support ticket? - Yes
• Affects configuration or data? - No
• Roles affected: - Store Managers and Employees

What's Changing?

Access to Hours gives stores the ability to publish available shifts to all employees at stores that are members of their Access to Hours group. 

Reason for the Change

Many Fair Work Week ordinances require that hours be made available to existing employees at nearby locations before a new employee can be hired. Companies now have the ability to define Access to Hours Groups in which all employees at the applicable stores will be sent an HS Message with details for each shift when a store is considering hiring a new employee to ensure compliance with local ordinances. 

Customers Affected

All customers who are a covered employer (required to adhere to Fair Work Week ordinance) in the following markets where Access to Hours is a key provision: Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City (Quick Serve only), Evanston, Seattle, San Francisco, and Emeryville. 

Release Note Info/Steps

Access to Hours is configured in the ASC under Configure > Access to Hours.  After selecting a Group in the top right, use the Add option to create a group, then use the Assign menu option to add stores to this group. You only need to assign stores to groups based on their geographic location. For example, stores in NYC can be assigned to an Access to Hours group and stores in Philadelphia can be assigned to a different Access to Hours group.

Edit the Access to Hours Group to define the number of days (1-5) each shift is made available to employees before the Access to Hours offer expires and a new employee can be hired. The Employer allows for any specific legal notifications that need to be included in the message to the employee as the notice of access to hours will be sent to all employees.

There is a new Compose Notice of Available Hours user permission to control who has rights to compose an Access to Hours HS Message at the store level. Any user with this user permission will see a new “Compose Access to Hours” option in their HS Message Inbox.

Clicking Compose Notice of Available Hours will launch a Notice of Access to Hours form where the manager will define the  Job, Start time, End time, Day of the week, Start Date, and Comments before being given the option to preview the message prior to sending.

The preview combines the form data, manager comments, and employer statement into the final HS message that will be sent to all employees and managers at all stores that are part of the Access to Hours Group.

“Reply all” is disabled and recipients are hidden in the “To” field and replaced with Access to Hours Group.  Hovering over the info icon will display all locations included in the Access to Hours Group.

When an employee replies to the original message, all managers with rights to compose Access to Hours messages at the sending store will receive the communication and can follow up with the sender.