How is the California Wage and Hour Law Different from Other States?

A majority of multi state employers often find themselves doing business in one way in forty-nine other states of the USA and entirely different way in California as the compliance obligations enforced by the wage and hour law in California is unique and varies from other states. So a California employer requires to identify and bond with an expert HR professional in order to avoid the many traps posed by state and federal wage and hour law compliance obligations.

As per the California law, an employer can offer "comp" time in lieu of overtime; but Federal law does not. Federal wage and hour law does not "preempt" state law on the same subject; the employers in California are required to follow the applicable legal provision favorable to employees in any situation.

The Federal law and California law, both create a lot of specific "exemptions," but the requirements of Federal and California law often differ from one another in describing the requirements needed for an employee to qualify for a particular exemption. As per California's laws an exempt employee must exercise discretion and independency in judgment in "matters of consequence" of "real and substantial significance to policies or general business operations."

California law provides all employees who are state licensed or certified and primarily engaged in the practice of law, accounting, medicine, teaching, architecture, optometry, dentistry and engineering can be considered exempt professionals. Taking into consideration the modern day Computer Professional exemption, a California employee may be exempt in case he/she is involved in executing duties including application of systems analysis techniques and measures to determine hardware, software, or functional specifications. An exempt computer professional may also be involved in the development, design, documentation, creation, analysis, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs based on user specifications or design specifications. Another aspect of California wage and hour law which differs from Federal law is the requirement that all non-exempt employees and employees classified under limited exemptions such as inside sales, receive daily meal and rest break periods.