Labor law violations are one of the most common sources of employee disputes and litigation. Missed break penalties, unpaid overtime, and scheduling errors might seem small individually, but they add up — and they can result in costly claims, back-pay obligations, and reputational damage.
Workforce's compliance tools are designed to catch issues before they happen. By flagging problems at the scheduling stage, you give your managers the information they need to make the right call. And if an issue does occur, Workforce recognizes it and calculates the appropriate penalty automatically.
What's covered
Workforce covers a wide range of labor law areas, including:
Overtime — Daily and weekly overtime thresholds, double-time rates, and consecutive days worked are all configurable. Rules are pre-populated based on your state, and you can adjust rates and thresholds to match your specific requirements.
Breaks — Paid and unpaid break requirements are calculated based on shift length. Where applicable, Workforce also applies missed meal break and missed rest break penalties — adding one hour of extra pay when a required break isn't taken, in line with California law and similar regulations.
Public holidays — Define which holidays your company recognizes and set the penalty rate that applies to time worked on those days (e.g. 200% of base rate).
Penalty hours — Applies premium rates to hours worked at certain times or on certain days, such as weekends or late nights.
Split shifts — Applies to employees who work non-consecutive hours in a single day.
Spread of hours — Applies when the span between the start and end time of a shift exceeds a defined threshold.
Call-in pay — Ensure employees are compensated fairly if a shift is cut short or cancelled after they've already reported for work.
Certification management — If certain roles require specific certifications — such as a Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate — Workforce can prevent employees without the required credentials from being scheduled for those shifts. This removes the risk of human error when building your roster.
How compliance works in Workforce
For US and Canadian customers, Workforce defaults daily, daily double, and weekly overtime rules (as applicable) based on your state or province.
From there, you can configure those rules and enable additional compliance rules to match your company's specific requirements.
Labor laws vary by state, province, and country, and can change over time. While Workforce gives you the tools to configure your compliance rules, it's ultimately your responsibility to ensure the rules you've enabled are appropriate for your business and location. If you're ever unsure, your local labor board or an employment attorney can help.
Compliance rules don't just apply after the fact — they work proactively too. When a manager builds a schedule, Workforce checks each shift against your compliance rules in real time. If scheduling an employee for a shift would push them into overtime, trigger a penalty, or violate a break requirement, you'll see a warning before you publish. That gives you the chance to make a change before it becomes a problem — rather than discovering it on a timecard after the fact.
Rules can be set to warn (flag the issue but allow it) or restrict (prevent the action entirely), depending on how strictly you want to enforce them.
Want to find out more
Check out our full set of compliance-related articles here: Attendance and compliance | SkyTab Workforce Help Center