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Alternative

Workweek

Schedule

Guide for CA Employers Only
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What is the AWS?

The California Alternative Workweek Schedule (AWS) is a way of setting a fixed work schedule that removes the normal daily overtime requirement.

What is the background?

Originally it was for manufacturing and industrial businesses, with fixed predictable schedules. The general idea is you are compressing a 40 hour workweek to 4 days, 10 hours/day, avoiding overtime, and the benefit to the employee is a 3 day weekend in lieu of receiving overtime.

The California Alternative Workweek Schedule (AWS) is a way of setting a fixed work schedule that removes the normal daily overtime requirement.

Originally it was for manufacturing and industrial businesses, with fixed predictable schedules. The general idea is you are compressing a 40 hour workweek to 4 days, 10 hours/day, avoiding overtime, and the benefit to the employee is a 3 day weekend in lieu of receiving overtime.

More FAQs

Step-by-Step Instructions, Forms and Support

California is one of a few states that require overtime to be paid when an employee works over 8 hours in a day. This is in addition to the federal requirement that overtime be paid for more than 40 hours of work in a week.

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An Alternative Workweek Schedule (AWS) means any regularly scheduled workweek requiring an employee to work more than eight hours in a day but not more than 40 hours in a week. A legally implemented AWS results in not paying daily overtime. Some restrictions and limitations apply.

The AWS allows employees and supervisors to mutually agree upon a varied distribution of their normal work hours. If not implemented properly, employers risk wage & hour penalties and back pay. This step-by-step guide clearly explains the procedures, rules, and timelines to implement an alternative work schedule in your office.

FAQs

The California Alternative Workweek Schedule (AWS) is a way of setting a fixed work schedule that removes the normal daily overtime requirement.

Originally it was for manufacturing and industrial businesses, with fixed predictable schedules. The general idea is you are compressing a 40 hour workweek to 4 days, 10 hours/day, avoiding overtime, and the benefit to the employee is a 3 day weekend in lieu of receiving overtime.

All hours outside of the AWS must be paid at the overtime rate of time and a half. So if you normally work Monday – Thursday, 10 hours/day, and you add a 6 hour shift on a particular Friday, all 6 hours that day must be paid at time and a half for every employee working that day.

Every minute outside of your AWS is time and a half, regardless of the reason: team meetings, trainings, CPR certifications, extra shifts, helping emergency patients, etc.

Nope. The AWS must be a fixed, guaranteed, schedule. You have to establish exactly 9 or 10 hours, or whatever the schedule is, every day. If your schedule is 10 hours/day, and the employer has employees stop work at 9.5 hours, then you owe them overtime on 1.5 hours (the 1.5 hours that are above 8 hours for that particular day.)

  1. Employer announces the process to the team
  2. Two weeks later hold a meeting to discuss the proposal, how it will work, the implications for the employees, etc. Employer also presents everything in writing.
  3. At a later date a secret ballot is held to vote on the AWS. Only employees vote, yes or no. If 2/3rds vote yes, then you proceed. Otherwise the AWS can’t be implemented. 
  4. Employer announces the vote results, then typically waits 60 days to put the AWS into place. 
  5. Employer also must notify the state of CA and ensure the business appears on a public state database. Your business must be listed on the state site in order for the AWS to be valid. 
  6. Employer must post wage orders in the workplace. 
  7. Every new-hire after the AWS is implemented must be informed. If the employee can’t make the schedule work, the employer must go through a process to attempt to make a schedule that works. 
  8. The employer must follow established rules if the employees wish to repeal the AWS and hold another secret ballot.

The employer just pays regular wages for the hours worked that day. However, you must document this and have the employee sign a form every time this occurs, proving that it was the employee’s choice to go home early, not the employer’s.

The more frequently you don’t follow your AWS, it negates and cancels your AWS. There is no set number of times, just “occasional” deviation is OK, which can’t be every week. Deviation should be almost never, such as only 2-3 times a year.

Most likely no, depending on how the transition occurred. The AWS is tied to a particular business. If you changed the legal business name, the doing-business-as-name, or if the AWS was registered under the previous owner’s first and last name, then it would most likely be considered void as of the date you acquired the business. Also, there were significant AWS changes in the year 2000 and the business you acquired must have updated things accordingly then.

Nope. This is why we sell our AWS packet with all the forms and instructions you need.

Yes, this is known as separate “units” and you could have different schedules within each unit. The steps above all still apply.

The employer is required to make an attempt at a different schedule that works for the employee(s). Employers cannot terminate employees immediately if they can’t make the new schedule work. As always, documentation is crucial here.

The AWS is a very complicated and messy process. Other options can include: changing your business hours to avoid overtime, enforcing start/stop times to avoid overtime, or simply doing a numbers calculation below.

By operating your current business hours you bring in your level of revenue and have the associated overtime costs. If you shorten your business hours you might reduce or eliminate your overtime, while lowering your revenue. Depending on the numbers, you may find one path makes more sense.

Let us answer your HR compliance questions.

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