How to set up breaks for a US state

How to set up breaks for a US state#

For: Admin You’ll need: The states your people work in, and the work policies that cover them.

US federal law doesn’t require meal or rest breaks, but many states do. You’ll create a break policy from a state’s pack and have the right work policy pick it, so planning, the recorded-break check and — where the state requires it — missed-break pay follow that state’s rules.

Check which packs ship#

A pack holds one jurisdiction’s general break rules and settings. Shiftavo ships 26:

  • States: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland (retail), Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

  • Territories: Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

  • Classes of work: Illinois hotel room attendants and New York factories.

Vermont’s pack holds no rule, only its note. Every pack with rules checks recorded breaks with no tolerance. The packs for California, Colorado, Minnesota, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Washington and Illinois hotel room attendants also pay extra for missed breaks: they require punched breaks and ask the break questions at clock-out — see How missed-break pay works.

Create the policy from the pack#

  1. In the sidebar, go to Company → Policies & rules → Break policies and click ‘Create’.

  2. Fill in ‘Name’, for example “California”.

  3. In ‘Start from’, pick the pack — packs are listed by country, then jurisdiction, for example ‘United States - California’.

  4. Read the note under the choice. It says what the pack assumes and which values it had to choose where the law names none.

  5. Click ‘Save’.

The policy’s page opens with the pack’s rules and settings. Edit anything that differs for your company — a collective agreement, for example.

Have the right work policy pick it#

A pack applies nothing on its own, and neither does a location’s state. Pick the new policy on the work policy that governs the people concerned — a location’s, an employment type’s or a person’s:

  1. Go to Company → Policies & rules → Work policies and click the work policy.

  2. In ‘Breaks’, choose the policy in ‘Break policy’ and click ‘Save’.

Which work policy applies to whom: How Shiftavo picks a work policy.

When a location’s state has a pack and the work policy supplying that location’s breaks picks no policy from it, the location’s page says so — for example “United States - California: this location’s breaks come from the work policy “Default”, which picks no break policy from that pack.” — with a link to ‘Open the work policy’.

When the law changes#

A pack only creates policies. A later update to a pack doesn’t change the policies you already have, and a new policy from the same pack shares the rules you already hold. When a state changes its law, edit the rules yourself.

Warning

A pack covers a jurisdiction’s general rules, not every exception — industry carve-outs, employer size, people working alone or collective agreements stay your call — and no pack is a complete payroll configuration. Check each pack’s note, and ask your counsel when you’re unsure what applies.

Verify it worked#

The work policy’s page names the new policy under ‘Breaks’, and the location’s notice is gone. Open a shift for someone under that work policy: its validation lists the state’s breaks.