If you operate a general office that has at least one employee, you will need to comply with the labor law requirements from both the federal and the state Department of Labor. Whether you operate an accounting office, a lawyer’s office, the headquarters for a trading company, an IT office, or any other kind of general office workplace, you must comply to these laws to operate a legal business. In addition to following the laws for employment, you need to display labor law posters in your office for your employees to see.
Display Policies
These posters must be displayed in specific ways:
- in a visible, open place that your employees frequent
- in the proper sizes as required by each poster
- in the most up-to-date versions of the labor laws
- in English as well as any other language required to ensure that all of your employees understand the labor laws as they apply to them
Displaying the posters is the easy part, usually. If you choose to buy your posters through a service, you will get automatic poster updates anytime the labor laws change. If you choose to print them yourself for free from the Department of Labor website, you will have to keep up with changes to the laws yourself.
State Labor Law Posters
Because every state requires different posters for your office, you’ll need to visit your state’s Department of Labor website and get an updated list that includes all your required posters. Every state requires the Occupational Safety and Health Act poster, which may be slightly different from state to state depending on the OSHA-approved State Plan.
Federal Labor Law Posters
The federal Department of Labor requires six main pieces of information for your office workers. These can be purchased or printed separately, or on a single poster. The information on these posters must include your employees’ rights and responsibilities under these laws:
- Family Medical and Leave Act, which lays out your employees’ rights to job retention during times of serious illness or pregnancy
- Employee Polygraph Protection Act, which explains your employees’ right to choose to decline a polygraph at any time
- Federal Minimum Wage, which explains the federal minimum wage
- Equal Employment Opportunity, which informs your employees that hiring and firing is done solely on the basis of job-related criteria
- Job Safety and Health, which lays out your responsibility to provide a safe workplace
- Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which lays out military personnel’s right to be employed even during deployment or drills
If you are a federally contracted office, such as an accountant that provides financial advice to a federal agency, you will need to display posters that apply to federal contractors. These include information on the eVerify system, the Worker’s Right to Work, the Walsh-Healy Public Contracts Act, and the National Labor Relations Act.
Displaying these labor law posters in your general office will ensure that your business is running legally while you focus on making it run smoothly.
