Employment Law for the Hospitality Industry
Developing clear employment practice policies is crucial to preventing — or minimizing the likelihood of — labor and employment problems within your restaurant or bar.
Helbraun Levey has a dedicated team of attorneys that focus on Employment Practices and understand the complex issues that often arise in the hospitality industry. Whether it is maintaining compliance with legislation like New York City’s Sick Leave Act or New York State’s Paid Family Leave Act or protecting your employees from workplace harassment and discrimination, our team is available to advise you on employment best practices.
Sexual harassment prevention training teaches employees how to identify, respond to, and report all forms of workplace harassment or discrimination. To foster a healthy workplace culture, it is important to educate your organization’s leadership and employees on what constitutes workplace or sexual harassment, the different forms of harassment, and how to effectively resolve the situation. The most successful way to a create a workplace free from sexual harassment is to empower your supervisors by giving them the tools they need to identify warning signs and follow proper prevention protocols.
Helbraun Levey provides Sexual and Workplace Harassment Prevention training to both supervisors and employees.
Harassment Prevention Training for Managers Syllabus covers:
The legislation landscape of New York can change quickly and have dramatic effects on your business. As the laws change, Helbraun Levey’s team of attorneys will be there to make sure that your business stays compliant and help you provide the best working environment for your employees.
New York City’s Earned Sick Time Act (Paid Sick Leave Law)
This law entitles employees to earn 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a total of 40 hours in one year. As the calculation of time off can be tricky, we can help you develop a system to track your employees’ time.
Fair Labor Standards Act and Tip Pooling Compliance
Compensation practices and the disbursement of tips are common sources of litigation in the hospitality industry. We will help you create processes and procedures to to make sure that you are appropriately paying your staff in accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and corresponding state laws.
Helbraun Levey offers an Employment Compliance Review, a suite of fully customizable services to ensure your restaurant’s internal policies comply with federal and state laws, including hiring procedures, wage and hour compliance, hospitality industry-specific documentation, and comprehensive HR policies for a multitude of employee concerns.
Our team will begin with a site visit to evaluate your business’s current level of compliance and take note of any potential liabilities. Upon review of the practices that you have in place, we will work closely with you to create an Employee Handbook and set of accompanying policies, specifically-tailored for your needs. We will not only work with you to develop new policies that comply with the applicable federal and state law, but we’ll also ensure that your new policies are put into practice smoothly and successfully.
To accomplish these goals, depending on your specific situation, we offer three standalone services.
Employee Handbook Development: We will work with you to generate a customized employee handbook tailored to your specific business needs.
Employment Startup Kit For New Operators: The Startup Kit provides new businesses with the necessary employment best practices and procedures, an Employee Handbook, and an Employment Practices Manual. The Employment Practices Manual will serve as your go-to reference guide and covers hiring and termination practices, wage and hour compliance, regulator contact information, documentation checklists, copies of New York regulations and requirements, and more.
Startup Kit includes:
Employment Compliance Kit For Existing Operators: Building on our Startup Kit, our team is available to audit your existing business and ultimately correct any non-compliance issues while ensuring compliance moving forward.
Compliance Kit includes:
Employees, particularly in the hospitality industry, can make or break a business. Attracting and retaining top talent can be difficult for any company, especially in a competitive industry like ours. Our team at Helbraun Levey can assist you in negotiating, reviewing, and drafting employment or contractor agreements that will be durable, fair, and straightforward. We can help you avoid litigation by advising you on proper employment practices in the state and city of New York, while suggesting employment terms that are customary and practical. As your reputation grows, your employees or employer should grow with you.
Our firm has extensive experience reviewing, negotiating and drafting all types of employment and management agreements, including:
Developing clear employment practice policies is crucial to preventing — or minimizing the likelihood of — labor and employment problems within your restaurant or bar. Even the best operators, though, can be subject to employment-related lawsuits.
Helbraun Levey has a dedicated team of litigators that focus on Employment Practices and understands the complex issues that often arise in the hospitality industry. Our team can help protect your business and your employees from issues arising from:
