Imagine a situation where your cleaners wanted to wrap up their shift early so they took a shorter lunch break. Their phone rings and they have a family emergency that they need to end their shift immediately. Previously, these weren't uncommon occurrences but due to some labor laws and state regulations, specifically in California, that early break ending can be costly to your bottom line.
The Problem with Breaks
California’s new labor laws are strictly enforcing mandatory break times down to the second— hourly employees are required to take a 30-minute lunch break, with no exceptions. If they clock back into their shift, your business gets hit with a one-hour penalty. For commercial cleaning businesses, these penalties can add up quickly, turning what seems like a minor issue into a major expense. Swept anticipates these types of labour laws will be coming to other states.
Why should you care?
- Stay Out of Trouble: Following break rules isn’t just about avoiding fines. It’s about keeping your business on the right side of the law and avoiding costly legal headaches.
- Save Money: Each time someone clocks in early, it could cost your business an extra hour’s pay. Over time, these costs pile up, eating into your profits.
- Employee Wellbeing: These required breaks show your team you want to ensure they are taking care of themselves. Even if the law doesn’t require minimum break time periods, you can implement these for employee retention.
.png?width=680&height=393&name=Blog%20Graphics%20(4).png)
How it Works
Swept supports the option by location or across all of your cleaning sites to automatically enforce break times to save you from worrying about the small details and reassure you the timestamps of breaks are accounted for. With every cleaning shift scheduled in Swept, your cleaners can clock in to track when work started, easily take a break on our mobile app with a countdown of time and log the exact time down to the second of when they get back to work. All of these governance timestamps are available for reporting or just in case you are audited in the future. Swept is your protection and reassurance so you can sleep well at night.
Cleaning Up
Break compliance is more than just a checkbox— it’s a way to protect your business and support your team. As regulations get tighter, it’s smart to stay ahead of the game. What seems like a small bit of functionality is a huge value to save you potential profit loss and keep your operations running smoothly and stress-free.
Commercial Janitorial companies rely on Swept to run their business from anywhere, anytime. Learn more about Swept here.
