It may have gotten lost in the holiday shuffle, but PEOs and staffing agencies with California operations will need to add one more item to your 2024 to-do list: ensuring two key changes are made to the mandatory notice given to new employees. Effective January 1, the notice provided to new hires must tell them about changes to the state’s paid sick leave law and about any recent emergency or disaster declarations. What can your organization do ensure you and your clients stay in compliance in the new year?

2 Key Changes to Mandatory New Hire Notice

You can read all about recent changes to the Wage Theft Prevention Act that will require all California employers to adjust their mandatory new hire notices in this Insight. To sum them up:

• Paid Sick Leave Requirements: State law just increased the amount of paid sick leave that employers must provide as of January 1 – going from three days or 24 hours to five days or 40 hours. As a result, employers will need to amend the portion of the mandatory notice to reflect these amounts, among other changes.
• Federal or State Emergency or Disaster Declarations: Thanks to a brand new law enacted last year, employers will also need to notify workers about any federal or state emergency or disaster declaration that affects them.

Compliance Challenges for PEOs and Staffing Firms

PEOs will need to ensure that their clients are aware of these new developments. You may be called upon to assist clients in updating the notice and incorporating the new version into the onboarding process. You should proactively reach out to them as soon as possible in the new year to inform them of their obligations and provide assistance if necessary.

Staffing firms also face additional information requirements when providing the notice to employees. Where the employer is a “staffing agency/business,” the law requires the notice to also provide information regarding “the legal entity for whom this employee will perform work.” This includes the name, physical address, mailing address, and telephone number of the other entity for whom the employee will perform work.

PEOs, of course, are not staffing or agency businesses. They should separately denote their business as a PEO, including the PEO’s business name, physical address, mailing address, and telephone number.