Are you searching for an effective wage and hour employer defense attorney in San Diego or anywhere in California?  Wage and hour violations expose California employers to expensive litigation, class actions and PAGA lawsuits as employees attempt to cash in on the rise in plaintiff’s lawsuits against employers.  California Courts have witnessed a significant increase over the past few years in wage and hour related litigation.  It is not a secret that the Courts tend to lean toward the side of the employee in these cases, so it is important to take action to protect yourself as an employer as much as possible.

What Steps Can You Take To Reduce Exposure as an Employer?

The most productive step you can take is to constantly update internal policies and procedures, the employee handbook, managerial behaviors and employee contracts and manuals.  Employers are faced with one of the toughest arrays of new laws and regulations regarding employment – especially in the area of unpaid overtime and minimum wage-related issues.

The most important take-away from this discussion relates to what you need to do the moment you become aware of an employee-related dispute or contact from an external attorney or law firm: take 5 minutes and call your wage and hour employer defense attorney at the Watkins Firm for a free consultation at 858-535-1511.  We can tell you right away if there is a genuine risk.  Often there are steps our employer clients can take to immediately reduce or mitigate entirely the financial and legal risks at hand.  Take action!

What they don’t tell you is there is a secret clock that is already running and you probably only have a few weeks to remediate the situation or face an expensive and time-consuming lawsuit or PAGA action.

Pro-Tip: “What it’s like to have a friend, your business and employer defense attorney, who you can just pick up the phone and call?  It’s so easy. Call us, and describe what’s going on with that certain troubled employee.

And we can tell you, like skin cancer, whether its’ something to be concerned about and take immediate action on, or if the scenario doesn’t fit anything and that I would go ahead and fight with them, or we can say, oh, this one looks bad because of the things they’re complaining about or just the general facts. I would handle it this way. And so you can turn a $20,000, $30,000 lawsuit situation into empowerment where you can stand your ground or maybe you make some concessions because you got some advice from your lawyer. You need to know when to worry about it and when you don’t.

And, in the worst case scenario, we can tell you if there is a lawsuit brewing or if one’s even been filed, and by the way – there’s a secret clock you’re not even aware of. There’s a timeframe that you need to act. First of all, when a plaintiff thinks about suing, they go to a lawyer, right? And then you’ll see a change in the way they’re talking to you. So all of a sudden they start posturing

And you’ll start receiving communications that sound like you’re getting set up. And you might be, and people in your staff will say, this person’s acting different. Well, if you called your lawyer, I would run a check to see if anything was filed already, because that’s what a plaintiff’s lawyer likes to try to do, they’re going to file it and not let you know until they’ve gathered evidence. But if you know that they filed and they’re hoping you won’t be gathering evidence and they’re trying to set you up, you can be gathering evidence yourself before they even serve you. And you could be fixing things, mitigating things, taking away the issues before their case gets going and beat them to the punch, so to speak.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

An Effective Wage and Hour Employer Defense Attorney with More Than 40 Years of Experience

When you call the Watkins Firm you will be working with an effective wage and hour employer defense attorney with more than 40 years of experience. Wage and hour issues often relate to ambiguity associated with the hours required to perform the work at hand, and the written expectations of San Diego employers.  The employee will claim “it was an expected part of the job to work at night and on the weekends.  They know there’s no way to get the work done in 8 hours a day.”  There have been recent case results where employees with no documentation except a few after hours emails have convinced a court that they were required to work overtime, even though they submitted timecards and accepted pay checks showing no overtime hours.

One has to be cautious about the classification of employees and the types of workers who you consider to be “exempt.”  Minimum wage violations often occur in straight commission environments or when a mistake is made in a situation involving a tipped employee.  California does not allow our employers to take “tip credits.”

Wage and hour violations expose employers to expensive litigation.  Employers must take substantial action to establish firm boundaries regarding minimum wage, overtime hours, the use of company resources, and the documentation of hours worked during the course of employment.  Overtime policies must be clearly established in all internal employee contracts, employee handbooks, and in some cases even on timecards themselves.

The management team must implement new strategies to clearly communicate overtime policies consistently throughout the organization.  This must be backed up with extensive documentation, and in some cases changes to system access after-hours and closer scrutiny of employee activities and time reports.

Recent changes in the law have brought a new threshold of challenge for San Diego employers.  Unpaid overtime violations and other wage and hour violations expose employers to expensive litigation and other risks.

We invite you to review our podcast Episode 26 – Wage and Hour Employer Updates as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.