California's Assembly Bill 701 (AB701), effective January 1, 2022, introduced new regulations for warehouses and distribution centers, particularly around the use of quotas otherwise referred to as engineered labor standards. The bill affects employers with 100 or more employees at a single warehouse distribution center or 1,000 or more across several centers in California. AB701's focus is on ensuring fair working conditions and preventing adverse employment actions linked to quota non-compliance.
Takt’s Labor Management Software (LMS) helps organizations comply with California AB701 by making it easy to communicate engineered labor standards (quotas) to employees, empowering them to monitor their performance against the quota, and monitor processes for potential safety violations or quota issues.
At our core, Takt believes empowering employees with the right tools and information will help them improve performance and grow their careers.
Defining and Communicating Quotas: AB701 defines a quota as a work standard involving specific productivity speeds, task quantities, or material handling within a set time, under which non-compliance could lead to adverse employment actions. Takt’s LMS offers transparent communication of these quotas via the employee and supervisor apps. This ensures that your entire operations team is informed on the standard and the performance of the facility against the standard to ensure processes are being followed.
Preventing Adverse Employment Actions: Adverse actions, as defined by AB701, include negative performance reviews, pay or hour reductions, and termination. Takt combines quantitative and qualitative employee performance through employee observations. Managers and supervisors are provided with employee performance data while leaving feedback for employees. Takt Coach, our AI-powered assistant will guide managers through leaving constructive and actionable feedback to employees. When the performance and feedback don’t align, Takt will warn managers about the issue.
Ensuring Legal Quota Usage: Employers can use quotas, but they must not prevent employees from complying with meal or rest periods, using bathroom facilities, or adhering to occupational health and safety standards. 100% utilization and 100% efficiency should always be achievable for employees. Takt ensures that employee breaks are not included in their utilization metrics. Takt also alerts engineers and operations teams when engineered labor standards are not being met by the team. This ensures that employees are held to realistic expectations.
Supporting Employees' Rights to Information: Under AB701, employees can request a written description of the quotas they are subject to and their personal-work-speed data. With Takt, your managers and supervisors can show your employees their current performance in real-time and the expectations for their work. Organizations with modern Android-based scanners can enable employees to view this information directly from their scanner without having to find a manager or go off task.
Protecting Against Retaliation: AB701 safeguards employees against retaliation for requesting quota information, complaining about quotas, or failing to meet undisclosed quotas. Takt helps organizations empower all levels of their operations, engineering, and finance teams to improve the operations and grow their employees. Employees receiving regular feedback perform 10-20% higher than their peers.
Takt’s Labor Management Solution (LMS) is a critical tool for complying with California AB701, increasing your warehouse performance, and growing the careers of your team. Quickly identifying process problems such as safety, underperformance, or poor coaching is critical to building a sustainable operation.