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Overtime Updates

We’ve released several overtime updates to QuickSolvePlus the week of October 18th that specifically address the SLS overtime features. Please read about these core updates and how they may impact you.

Overtime Effective Date
You can now set an effective date for when you want your SLS OT settings active. This means you can confidently maintain your schedules prior to this OT effective date and not be prohibited by any weekly overtime caps. If the effective date is left blank, and any SLS OT settings have been enabled, those settings will be applied to all calendars.

OT Effective date

Worker IHSS Dashboard Mass Update
Previously, to activate a worker’s weekly IHSS dashboard, each worker must have first been listed as “yes” to the IHSS Worker field in their HR profile. Now, instead of going into each HR profile one by one, you can do a mass update by selecting the “Cap Worker Weekly IHSS…” option under SLS OT Settings in Utilities. If that SLS OT setting is already selected, unselect and re-select to send the update to all HR profiles. The only function of this “IHSS Worker” option in QSP is to activate and display the worker weekly IHSS dashboard on their worker view in the scheduler.

ihss tracking hours

Pink = Sleep Shifts
If one or both of the SLS OT Settings for “5 Consecutive Night Shift Rule” and “24 Consecutive Hour Rule” are selected, the “Sleep” check box will be active in the new and edit shift windows in the scheduler. Labeling a shift as “sleep” is only necessary if using the overtime exempt sleep rules. Sleep hours, now displaying as pink, will only be exempt from a worker’s weekly overtime calculations when it satisfies one of the sleep rules. HOWEVER, a sleep shift will stay pink regardless if a sleep rule has been met.

overtime sleep exemptions

Sleep Exempt Shift Lengths
If you want up to 8 sleep hours to calculate as OT exempt in QSP, then the shift length must be at least 8 hours in length and satisfy the rules.
The scheduler is responsible for labeling the appropriate shifts as “sleep”, and QSP will provide the necessary prompts when a sleep shift doesn’t meet the sleep exempt requirements. A scheduler must acknowledge these prompts to proceed scheduling. If you are currently building daily schedules from 12:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m., in order to capture a full 8 hours of sleep on one shift, especially those that end before 8:00 a.m., the start time needs to begin on the prior “day”. Based on the way QSP has been designed to recognize and calculate sleep exempt shifts, you won’t be able to label, let’s say, a 10p-12a shift with 2 hours of sleep, and have its consecutive shift from, let’s say, 12a-6a with 6 hours of sleep, calculate a total of 8 exempt sleep hours. The shift would need be created as one shift from 10p-6a.

8 hours uninterrupted sleep

 

Parenting Support is an SLS Overtime Service Type included on Reports
We’ve released an update that adds Parenting Support hours to SLS Overtime calculations on Payroll Reports and Simple Time Sheets. When OT reports are enabled, Simple (not Detailed) Time Sheets will display any OT hours. Previously, Parenting Support hours were listed on a separate time sheet. They’re now, when OT reports are enabled and if applicable, included with all the SLS Overtime service types.

Overtime time sheet

Reminder: OT Enabled Payroll Reports and Weekly Work Week
“Payroll Reports” include: Simple Time Sheets, Payroll Processing Report and Condensed Payroll Processing Report. When OT calculations for Payroll Reports are enabled, they will be generated in weekly batches based on how your agency work week has been defined in SLS OT Settings. Weekly SLS overtime will not calculate for mid-week pay period date ranges.

To review some of our SLS overtime video tutorials, go here: https://www.quicksolveplus.com/ot-tutorials/

 

Fair Labor Standards Act Home Care Rule – Likely Effective Date

Our most recent newsletter referenced that Home Care Workers are now eligible for Overtime. This Fair Labor Standards Act Home Care Rule now has a likely effective date. Please read the article and opinions below by the National Resource Center for Participant-Directed Services.

Home Care Rule Likely Effective Date

“As you know, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“DC Circuit”) recently reversed the lower court decision that the Fair Labor Standards Act Home Care Rule exceeded DOL’s regulatory authority. The DC Circuit found that DOL acted well within its authority in issuing the Home Care Rule. The Home Care Rule consists of two major components: a new narrowed definition of “companionship” services for purposes of the companionship exemption from overtime and minimum wage, as well as a new Rule prohibiting third-party employers from using the companionship and live-in exemptions.

In light of this decision, the Rule will become effective again in the near future. We have just received confirmation from legal experts stating that the ruling is automatically stayed for 52 days from the decision date. Therefore, the Rule will likely be made effective on October 13, 2015. The automatic stay gives the plaintiffs (the Home Care Association of America, the International Franchise Association, and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice) time to decide their next move.

The plaintiffs have two options if they wish to appeal the decision.

1. They can file a petition asking the Supreme Court to review the DC Circuit decision.

2. They can file a petition asking the entire DC Circuit to review the three-judge panel’s decision.

 A recent statement by the National Association for Home Care & Hospice indicated that plans were underway to take the case to the Supreme Court. If the plaintiffs’ appeal is granted, the effective date of the Rule could be pushed back.

However, as a recent New York Times article on the case notes, legal experts have found that the evidence strongly suggests the Supreme Court will NOT agree to hear the case. These experts also find it overwhelmingly probable that the DC Circuit will NOT rehear the case.  At this preliminary stage, therefore, it appears that the Home Care Rule is here to stay.

The most likely outcome is that the Home Care Rule will go into effect on October 13.

NRCPDS will hold a Home Care Rule webinar open to all participant direction stakeholders on Wednesday, September 9th from 3 to 4:30 PM EST. The webinar will explore possible legal outcomes of the Home Care Rule litigation and will provide tools for stakeholders to develop a practical approach to compliance.  Please stay tuned for webinar registration information.

If your organization needs immediate assistance with a Home Care Rule compliance strategy, please reach out to us at info@participantdirection.org.”

Best,

The NRCPDS Team

Need a Solution?

QuickSolvePlus has SLS overtime tools that can help California Regional Center Service Providers reduce their overtime exposure. Contact us for more information!

Overtime Pay for Home Care Workers

How will your agency be impacted?

On Friday August 21, 2015 a federal appeals court reinstated wage rules that guarantee overtime pay for home care workers and minimum wage protections.  No date has been set for when the new rule will be enabled, but, pending an appeal, it could be sooner than later. QuickSolvePlus already has SLS OT tools that you will need!

QSP OT Toolbox

In anticipation of this overtime rule being effective last January, QSP currently has tools available to help reduce your SLS overtime exposure through effective scheduling and maximizing overtime exempt rules, such as Sleep hours and 5 Consecutive Night Shift Rule. Some tools and optional settings include:

  1. Customizing and defining your OT work week
  2. Set SLS OT weekly caps for clients and workers
  3. Set IHSS weekly caps for clients and workers
  4. Optional Co-Employer with IHSS setting
  5. Scheduling restrictions based on OT caps
  6. Reformatted Reports to account for OT: Simple TC’s, PPR and CPPR

Contact us for a free demonstration

QSClock

Our mobile time clock is another effective feature in overtime management by providing real-time insight into staff and client schedules by alerting office personnel of early and late clock ins and outs. QSClock adds an additional level of accountability and accuracy so you know where (GPS locator) and when (early/late/no clock notifications) you’re staff are in relation to the scheduled shifts. Check out more details here.

OTsettings

This QuickSolvePlus “QSP” Web Chat is part 3 in the U-Series which highlights the following features in QSP’s Applications Settings:

  • Expiration Dates/Scheduling Conditions
  • SLS Overtime Settings
  • Staff Scheduling Preferences
  • QuickSolve Clock Preferences
  • Staff Expense Preferences
  • Client Profile Preferences

 

Expiration Dates/Scheduling Conditions

Restrict Scheduling to one staff per client, restrict scheduling over time off requests, show client training shifts on the calendar, restrict or warn users when scheduling more than a certain number of hours per shift, and how to utilize un-paid meal breaks.

SLS Overtime Settings

Enabling overtime settings if they apply to your operations.

Staff Scheduling Preferences

Limit what service types display from the Worker scheduling view.

QuickSolve Clock Preferences

Enable the proper service types (SLS, IHSS, ILS, Parenting Support) to be included in the QSP Clock app.

Staff Expense Preferences

Turn on the holidays and the extra rate of pay that apply to your regional center agency.

Client Profile Preferences

Set default day time and night time hours for new clients, and turn off or on agency phone numbers from displaying on a client face sheet.

Within QSP is the option to generate payroll processing reports that include SLS overtime calculations. A simple checkbox gives you the freedom to see your SLS OT calculations display on PPR’s and Time Sheets for your determined work week. Because overtime is a per week calculation, the payroll processing reports generate multiple sheets within the excel file to display weekly overtime totals. When running your PPR, if you select a date range that begins or ends mid week, the report will not take into account hours worked outside that date range. For example, your SLS OT work week is Sunday through Saturday and your payroll range begins on the 16th which is a Friday, hours worked before the 16th will not be considered to determine if any overtime is to paid out on the 16th and 17th. Watch this video to learn more!

Just like setting a weekly OT cap for a client or worker, the same type of limit can be set up to manage how much IHSS a worker or client can be scheduled. The difference is that there are no security override options available. If a user attempts to schedule over the weekly IHSS cap, they are forced to modify the shift. No exceptions here. Each worker and client can have a custom cap that can be set up in their profile, after being initially set up in the SLS OT settings. The worker even has a special weekly IHSS dashboard that is enabled by selecting them as an IHSS worker in their HR profile. Check out how all this is done.

There is an optional SLS OT setting within QSP that, if enabled, gives users the ability to assign sleep hours to particular shifts that qualify for this night rule. These sleep hours then become ineligible in overtime calculations. QSP performs a validation process to determine if shifts marked with Sleep hours satisfy this 5 Night Rule. Warning messages will alert users if they don’t satisfy the 5 night rule conditions.  Watch to learn more!

If you so choose, you can enable within QSP’s SLS OT Settings the 24 hour rule. This features gives agencies the option to exclude up to 8 sleep hours from a consecutive 24 hour shift with the same staff and same client and have those hours exempt from overtime calculations. This tutorial details how that can work for your operations.

This tutorial reviews the QSP SLS OT setting called Worker Overtime Weekly Caps which allows an agency to set up the amount of overtime they are allowing their users to schedule per worker. This weekly worker overtime cap can be customized per worker as well by going into the Worker’s profile and adjusting the overtime settings per worker.  QSP will then look first to see if there is an override value that is different that the default Application settings for a worker’s weekly overtime cap for SLS. Scheduling restrictions will warn or restrict certain security levels that try and schedule service hours over the set overtime limit. Watch this video to learn more.

This tutorial reviews the QSP SLS Overtime setting called Client Overtime Weekly Caps which allows an agency to set up the amount of overtime they are allowing their users to schedule per client. This overtime cap can be customized per client as well by going into the Client’s profile and adjusting the Overtime Calculation Rules per client. QSP will then look first to see if there is an override value that is different that the default Application settings for a client’s SLS Weekly Overtime cap. Scheduling restrictions will warn or restrict certain security levels that try and schedule service hours over the set overtime limit. Watch this video to learn more.