Predictive Scheduling Comes to the Windy City and City of Brotherly Love

A​s if this year hasn’t been complicated enough, 2020 also brought new Fair Work Week requirements for Philadelphia and Chicago. Predictive Scheduling laws are now in place for six cities and one state, primarily impacting the restaurant and retail industries. HotSchedules has developed new features to support scheduling compliance in these two cities, as well as Emeryville and San Francisco, California, New York City, Seattle, and the state of Oregon. 

While all of these locations have different deadlines, fines, and provisions, the laws generally seek to give employees advanced notice of their schedules, offer the right to rest in between shifts, and levy penalties to employers who do not comply. Check out this table below to see if you have a compliance obligation in either Chicago or Philadelphia.

COVID-19 Relief

The global pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to most service businesses, but also a little relief with regards to the Philly regulations. While Philadelphia’s predictive-scheduling ordinances take effect on April 1, they will not enforce predictability pay until further notice due to the pandemic. Chicago employers must still meet the July deadline unless they can prove that COVID-19 caused the business to change its operating hours, operating plan, or the goods or services provided by the employer resulting in a change to the schedule.

HotSchedules has You Covered

HotSchedules helps alleviate this problem by offering employee-led shift swaps and voluntary house shift pickups. We have built several features over the last two years to help you maintain compliance in all seven locales. Here’s a quick summary of each:

Advance Notice of Schedule

All Predictive Scheduling or Fair Work Week laws have an advanced notice period. The schedule must be posted a certain number of days in advance, and changes after posting could result in penalties. Setting an advance notice period in the Above Store Console will help managers know when to make a change without incurring a penalty.

Edits to Posted Schedule & Schedule Audit Report

Managers can document changes to a posted schedule and notate if the change was voluntary or involuntary. The Schedule Audit Report provides documentation of schedule edits.

Right to Rest

The minimum hours’ threshold feature allows managers to set a default number of hours of rest between each shift. Visual cues in the scheduler alert managers to violations, allowing them to correct the mistake before publishing the schedule.

Pay Adjustments for Predictability Pay and Right to Rest

Admins can create pay rules based on each legislative area and assign them to each store. Rules are configured and managed centrally in the Above Store Console.

Oregon Voluntary Standby List

This list allows Oregon employers to maintain a standby list of employees who want to work additional hours without the burden of penalty pay.  While the legislation intends to protect employees from changes to their schedule, this offers back some flexibility for when they want to pick up a few extra hours.

New for Chicago – Hide Schedule From Peers

Chicago-based employees who are a victim of domestic violence can request to hide their schedule from co-workers. Their scheduled shift will not appear on either the home page schedule or the mobile roster. 

Get Ready to Build Predictable Schedules

If you operate in either of these markets, please contact your Customer Success Manager, or submit a request to Customer Support. To learn more about Predictive Scheduling and Fair Work Week, please check out this training video that demonstrates all features and how to use them.

If you’re in Chicago or Philadelphia and want to learn more about how to apply these new predictive scheduling rules in your HotSchedules instance, get in touch!