Excerpted from a Reed Smith LLP Blog by Mark S. Goldstein
While the end of a calendar quarter is a good time to review your business’s HR-related practices and procedures, the start of Q1 seems to be particularly popular. With that in mind, we have compiled the following checklist of potential action items for U.S. employers in Q1 2025.
Vet onboarding paperwork and procedures
Federal law, and in many areas state and local law as well, require that businesses provide new employees, including remote hires, with certain written notices and other materials upon hire. Many businesses also require new hires to sign additional documentation outlining the terms and conditions of employment. To that end, now is a good time to ensure that all new hires are:
- Receiving any notices required by applicable law. This includes, for instance, any wage-related notices that identify whether the employee will be classified as exempt or non-exempt from overtime pay.
- Signing any required offer letters, restrictive covenant/confidentiality/works for hire agreements, arbitration agreements, and/or other documents delineating the terms and conditions of employment.
- Completing any required immigration and tax forms.
Employers should also confirm whether there have been changes to any applicable state and/or local laws relating to the hiring and onboarding process.
Review employee handbooks/policies
Over the past several years, federal, state, and local lawmakers have enacted significant workplace-related laws concerning the written HR policies that U.S. businesses must maintain. In New York, for instance, an employer’s sexual harassment prevention policy must contain extremely specific language and information in order to comply with state law.
In light of this, and regardless of the jurisdiction(s) in which they operate, all U.S. employers should review their employee handbooks and any other written policies to ensure federal, state, and local law compliance.
Conduct any required workplace trainings
Numerous states and cities have in recent years adopted requirements that employers provide annual sexual harassment prevention or other workplace training to their workers. For example, most New York employers must provide harassment prevention training to any new employees within 90 days of hire and annually for existing employees. California also has specific training requirements.
In a world where many employees now work remotely, compliance with applicable training requirements may mean that the training is conducted virtually. No matter the form or format, though, training must be conducted in line with applicable legal timeframes and with some sort of integrated interactive component, as required by law.
Other Q1 action items
- Update any form employment, restrictive covenant/confidentiality/works for hire, and/or separation agreements to reflect recent legal changes.
- If you are considering engaging workers as independent contractors, rather than employees, assess whether the contractors might be misclassified (particularly in states like California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey that use the stringent, so-called “ABC test” to determine worker misclassification).
- Ensure your leave of absence and accommodation protocols are legally up to date. This includes understanding what leave of absence and accommodation laws apply to your workforce, auditing the leave and accommodation requests processes, and reviewing any related documentation.
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