Welcome to February!  Groundhog Day is behind us again. The Kansas City Chiefs broke a 50-year dry spell – “Feels great, Baby!” ::cough:::.  And it’s time to start presidential primary season!  Groundhog Day is behind us again.  (SWIDT?)  

What joys could a humble employment law blog bestow on you to mark milestones such as these?  Prepare to be disappointed.  Unless, that is, you like a good segue.

Milestones such as the above transcend employment law.  But employers and HR professionals have annual obligations and milestones of their own to note.  They have grown over the years  such that HR Departments should have calendars full of reminders of annual deadlines, plus those new dates that come up from time to time.  Here are some timely and current examples for February 2020. 

For example,  January 31, 2020 was the date that employers were supposed to start using the NEW and IMPROVED Form I-9, courtesy of the U.S.C.I.S.  You can find out about the changes and obtain your new I-9s here.    The USCIS announced the form in October 2019. 

Also, February 1 was the deadline for posting those injury logs for Cal-OSHA.  More information is available from Cal-OSHA here.  This obligation comes up every year.  

BONUS: Now that you have issued your W-2s, it’s a good time to make sure you also provided your notices regarding Flexible Spending / Dependent Care Account Balances, and Earned Income Credits, all required by California and/or Federal Law (in the case of the latter).  The Flexible Spending / Dependent Care notice requirement is new this year, per Labor Code section 2810.7. But the Earned Income Credit Notice has been around a while. EDD information here. Hopefully your payroll service takes care of that for you, if you have one.  Both of these are annual obligations.