Compliance Stuff

  As 2026 approaches, employers may want to assess the following wage-and-hour compliance issues: rising salary thresholds for overtime exemptions, widening gaps between federal and state minimum wage amounts, and increasingly complex state-specific duties tests and exemption standards. Each can present operational risk if job classifications and pay practices are not carefully aligned with both the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and stricter state laws. Employers can benefit from ensuring they have updated pay rates and job descriptions to align with the new and changing standards explained below. Quick Hits Employers may want to prepare for 2026 by mapping exempt roles in Alaska, California, Maine, New York, and Washington to new salary thresholds and implementing adjustments aligned with effective dates. To avoid salary compression, employers may want to reconcile pay bands in the thirty-one states with higher minimum wages than federal law and ensure that any threshold multipl...

Financial institutions, insurance companies, and other businesses regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) may need to take additional steps to comply with certain NYDFS cybersecurity regulations scheduled to take effect on November 1, 2024. Quick Hits Certain requirements of the amended NYDFS cybersecurity regulations will take effect on November 1, 2024. Covered entities may need to update their policies and procedures, including with respect to corporate governance, encryption, incident response and business continuity plans, system testing, and employee training. On March 1, 2017, the NYDFS enacted comprehensive cybersecurity regulations for financial services companies and other covered entities. The cybersecurity regulations were most recently amended on November 1, 2023, with a series of rolling effective dates beginning on December 1, 2023. Several provisions of the amended cybersecurity regulations will take effect on November 1, 2024, with others com...