We hope you are enjoying the Spring!
2024 has brought some changes to employment law, both nationally and here in Colorado. Some of these changes will have massive impact and could be costly and time consuming if ignored. We want to ensure our clients are successful and adapting to the latest changes in laws and regulations affecting employers, therefore we want to bring a few items to your attention. If you need help implementing these changes or have any questions, please contact us!
New Overtime Law
Starting July 1, 2024, most salaried workers who earn less than $844 per week ($35,568/year) will become eligible for overtime pay. And on January 1, 2025, most salaried workers who make less than $1,128 per week ($58,656) will become eligible for overtime pay. As these changes occur, the job duties test will continue to determine overtime exemption status for most salaried employees.
In addition, as of July 1, 2024, those employees who earn $132,964 per year will meet the requirement for being defined as a “highly compensated employee” (not entitled to overtime pay under the FLSA if certain requirements are met). And on January 1, 2025, the threshold of being considered a highly compensated employee will increase to $151,164 per year.
Starting July 1, 2027, these earnings thresholds will be updated every three years so they keep pace with changes in worker salaries.
This means that the right to overtime pay will be extended to thousands of salaried workers across the country.
ACTION ITEM: Contact your HR department or Turning the Corner to determine which of your employees will be eligible for overtime pay, as well as those exempt from overtime pay.
To be exempt from overtime pay, the following criteria must be met:
- An employee is paid a salary,
- The salary is not less than a minimum salary threshold amount noted above, and
- The employee primarily performs executive, administrative or professional duties. *NOTE, there are “tests” that your HR practitioner will need to perform to determine if a role meets this criteria.
For more information, please read the following: DOL Final Overtime Rule
Colorado Employment Applications
As of July 1, 2024, Colorado’s Job Fairness Application Act goes into effect mandating that any requests for information that may indicate an applicant’s age must be removed. This includes no longer asking for graduation dates or dates of attendance at educational institutions, or date of birth or age.
ACTION ITEM: Review your job applications and revise them as needed to ensure compliance.
For more information, please read Colorado Job Application Fairness Act
Colorado Paid Family and Medical Leave (FAMLI) Update
Colorado’s new paid family and medical leave benefit started in January, so if you’re not providing your employees access to the state’s paid leave, or providing your own privately held insurance, you could be on the hook for fines and litigation. Most importantly, you should ensure you’re administering this leave correctly whenever an employee is dealing with their own health condition or that of a family member.
The good news: the state has recently released their HR Benefits dashboard for FAMLI in the MyFAMLI+Employer site! This is exciting for employers because it allows for more visibility into claims status which helps with Leave management.
ACTION ITEM: If you haven’t done so already, you will need to designate an HR Benefit contact. If you fail to do this step then the person that created your account will be notified as they are the Account Administrator. Since each account can have up to two administrators and six HR benefit viewers, we recommend having more than one user on the account. This is also a good time to make sure all contact information for the user accounts are up to date!
New Federal Non-Compete Law
Non-Competes were already severely limited in Colorado (and Non-Solicits for that matter), but the under the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new rule, existing non-competes for the vast majority of workers nationwide will no longer be enforceable after the rule’s effective date, which is expected to be September 4, 2024. Existing non-competes for senior executives – who represent less than 0.75% of workers – can remain in force under the FTC’s final rule, but employers are banned from entering into or attempting to enforce any new noncompetes, even if they involve senior executives.
ACTION ITEM: Employers will be required to provide notice to workers other than senior executives who are bound by an existing non-compete that they will not be enforcing any non-competes against them. All existing agreements should be reviewed with legal counsel.