Following are some best practices for compliance:

• Create clear and compliant meal and rest break policies that are clearly stated and communicated to employees. Train employees on the policies and periodically remind employees of your policies by distributing them on an annual basis.
• Consistently enforce your meal and rest break policies, including by disciplining employees who violate the policies.
• Review your Wage Order(s) and ensure you are complying with any specific requirements that apply to your employees.
• Comply with the timing requirements for meal and rest breaks. Your policies should explain the required timing for breaks and that employees are prohibited from working or being available to work during these breaks. Consider scheduling meal and rest breaks to ensure the timing requirements are met.
• Meet your obligation to provide uninterrupted meal and rest breaks and relieve employees of all duty during breaks. Employees cannot be on call during breaks and you must relinquish all control over how employees spend their time during breaks.
• Require employees to accurately record their hours worked, including meal break start and end times.
• Regularly audit your timecard records to determine whether employees are taking compliant meal breaks. Follow up with employees regarding any missed, late or short breaks that appear in the timekeeping records to determine why a compliant break was not recorded
• Educate managers about their obligations relating to meal and rest breaks and discipline managers who do not follow your policies. Train managers that they cannot interrupt employees during breaks.
• Inform employees that they must immediately report if they have been denied the opportunity to take a meal or rest break. Employees should not be required to report this only to their direct supervisor, as it may be the supervisor who is discouraging them from taking the break. This will help you account for the time for payroll purposes and also to monitor why employees are missing breaks.
• Properly document missed meal and rest breaks.
• If an employee is not provided with a compliant meal or rest break, pay the employee a meal or rest break premium of one hour of pay at their regular rate of pay.
• Consistently discipline employees who do not return from breaks within the required time. This is a disciplinary issue, not a pay issue. You still need to pay them appropriately.
• Consult with legal counsel regarding the approach that is best for your industry.

• A sample meal and rest break policy — along with many more — is available as part of CalChamber’s Employee Handbook Creator®. Visit the CalChamber Store to find out more about how to easily create your employee handbook.