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Wage and hour lawsuits are spiking for California employers. One of the biggest issues that businesses are facing is when employees work while on their lunch breaks.

Here's why that can land your business in legal trouble and facing large fines.

As we get closer to another scorching California summer, Cal/OSHA is reminding employers with outdoor workers to take precautions to protect them against the heat.

California employers need to be especially mindful as Cal/OSHA has workplace safety regulations governing the prevention of heat illness and the agency actively enforces its heat illness prevention standard.

Cal/OSHA is urging employers to take the steps outlined in this article to prevent heat-related illness among their employees who work outdoors.

If your employees feel pressured to answer work-related calls, e-mails or text messages off the clock, many of them will do so even while driving. That can put your organization at risk of lawsuit should they be involved in an accident.

If you've accumulated substantial assets, you know you need robust insurance protection. However, if you haven't checked your policy limits over the last few years, you could be at risk of underinsurance due to a surge in home rebuilding costs over the last six years.

If you have a high-end home, would your current homeowner's insurance cover a major claim?

As the new school year starts and high schoolers get into the groove of hanging out with friends, they may go to parties after their school football games on weekends.

Unfortunately, these events often become occasions for teenagers to drink alcohol. Teens at unsupervised parties risk harming themselves and others when they drink. Parents of kids who throw these parties, with or without their parents' knowledge or consent, may bear responsibility for what happens there — and for injuries or damages that occur after guests leave.

As our lives get more high-tech, one feature of your home may one day go the way of the typewriter: your house key.

From fingerprint sensors to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi-enabled systems, keyless entry products are rapidly transforming the way Americans secure their homes.

These keyless systems may not be for everyone, particularly anyone that's not comfortable with technology. 

A new study has found that following a diet that consists of processed foods can quickly result in weight gain.

In the study, 20 participants lived in a lab for four weeks, spending two weeks on a diet rich in highly processed foods and two weeks on one rich in whole foods. When they ate mostly processed foods, they took in on average 500 more calories per day and gained on average 2 pounds, mostly in the form of fat.

A strong workplace culture is built on shared values, clear expectations and consistent behaviors. For organizations with many remote workers, culture becomes even more important because informal interactions that reinforce it in an office setting are largely absent.

Without intentional effort from employers, workers can feel disconnected, communication can break down and engagement, productivity and morale can suffer.

Too often, safety on construction sites is treated as a field problem managed after work begins. By then, many of the most significant risks are already built into the job. Safety in design flips that approach by identifying and eliminating hazards before ground is ever broken.

Safety in design is a proactive process that integrates safety into the earliest stages of planning, engineering and layout. The goal is simple: to remove or reduce risks at their source rather than relying on protective equipment, procedures or workarounds later. For construction executives, design safety can mean fewer injuries, lower costs and smoother project delivery.

One of the most important workplace safety tools you can implement is reporting near misses and correcting the factors that lead to them.

A near miss is an event that could have led to a workplace injury, illness or death. While you are not required to report near misses to your insurer, you should take note of them because they can help identify deficiencies in your safety protocols.

While tools used in construction, agriculture, manufacturing and other industries make workers' lives easier, they can also pose a danger of injury or death if used incorrectly or if they malfunction, to the worker using the tool, co-workers and the public.

Injured workers may suffer pain, recovery challenges and the possibility that they may be unable to return to work, while your company could face OSHA fines and higher workers' compensation premiums. If a third party is injured, buckle up for the inevitable lawsuit, which can explode into a multi-million settlement or judgment.

The National Labor Relations Board has formally reinstated its 2020 rule governing when a company is deemed a joint employer under labor law, loosening standards put in place during the Biden administration.

This pro-business shift will make it harder for workers to hold parent companies, franchisors or hiring entities liable for labor violations by contractors, subcontractors or franchisees.