California Workplace & Employment Law Blog

Last week, the California Supreme Court issued a sweeping decision adopting a new test that will make it much harder for companies to show that workers qualify as independent contractors instead of employees.  The ruling affects all companies in California that work with independent contractors, which includes freelance workers and outside consultants. The Court’s decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles may end up requiring companies that work with independent contractors to follow wage and hour laws that apply in the typical employer-employee relationship.

I’ve previously written about the importance of distributing employee handbooks, employment arbitration agreements and confidentiality agreements to your workforce. However, if you have employees who have little English literacy, it is important that you also provide translations of these key documents to your non-English speaking employees.

A performance improvement plan (PIP) is a good way to give struggling employees the opportunity to succeed while still holding them accountable for past performance. PIPs may be used to address failures to meet specific job performance-related issues or behavior-related concerns. PIPs may lead to several different outcomes, including improvement in overall performance, the recognition of a skills or training gap, or remedial actions such as demotion or termination.