Chicago Fair Workweek Rules Change June 1, 2026: What Covered Employers Should Update Now

Chicago employers covered by the city’s Fair Workweek Ordinance have another June 1 deadline to prepare for. The Chicago Office of Labor Standards has adopted updated rules implementing the ordinance, and those changes take effect June 1, 2026. The revisions do not create an entirely new law, but they do clarify several operational details employers need to get right, especially around scheduling notices, good-faith estimates, predictability pay, right-to-rest consent, access-to-hours rules, and recordkeeping.

In HR terms: this is not just a handbook update. This is a scheduling, payroll, timekeeping, and manager-training issue all wearing one compliance trench coat.

Quick Refresher: What Is Chicago’s Fair Workweek Ordinance?

Chicago’s Fair Workweek Ordinance is a predictive scheduling law. It generally applies to covered employers in certain industries, including building services, healthcare, hotels, manufacturing, restaurants, retail, and warehouse services. Covered employees are generally those who work primarily in Chicago, work in a covered industry, and earn at or below the city’s applicable wage threshold. The city’s ordinance also uses employer-size thresholds to determine coverage.

At a high level, the ordinance is designed to give covered employees more predictability in their schedules. Depending on the circumstances, covered employers may need to provide advance notice of work schedules, issue good-faith estimates, offer additional hours to existing employees before hiring new workers, pay predictability pay for certain schedule changes, and obtain consent when employees work shifts too close together.

1. “Week” Now Means Seven Consecutive 24-Hour Periods

One important clarification is the replacement of “calendar week” with “week.” Under the updated rules, a “week” means seven consecutive 24-hour periods and may begin on any day of the week and at any hour of the day. Littler notes that this definition is consistent with the Fair Labor Standards Act approach.

This matters because scheduling obligations often depend on measuring time correctly. Employers should confirm that their scheduling systems, payroll platforms, and internal policies are using the correct workweek structure.

For example, if your payroll week begins on Sunday at midnight but your scheduling system uses a different week, you may need to confirm whether that creates any compliance gaps. The issue is not just what the policy says. It is what the system actually does.

2. Employer Coverage Calculations Are Clarified

The updated rules also clarify how employer size should be calculated when determining whether the ordinance applies. Existing employers will look at the average number of global employees and covered employees during a 12-month period. New employers will use a 90-day period.

This is an important reminder that Chicago’s Fair Workweek coverage analysis is not limited to the number of employees physically working inside Chicago. The ordinance can consider global employee counts, and employers with multi-location or multi-state operations should not assume they are too small based only on their Chicago headcount.

For restaurants and employers operating through affiliated entities, franchises, or multiple locations, this calculation should be reviewed carefully. One location may feel “small,” but the legal coverage analysis may tell a different story.

3. Work Schedules Must Be Time-Stamped

The revised rules require posted work schedules to include the date and time of posting.

That may sound minor, but it is a big practical point. If there is a dispute later about whether the employer provided timely notice, the timestamp may become key evidence.

Employers should review how schedules are posted and distributed. This may include physical postings, scheduling apps, employee portals, text/email notifications, or other electronic systems. The process should show not only what schedule was posted, but when it was posted and how employees received access to it.

A screenshot floating around a manager’s phone is probably not the compliance strategy we’re looking for here.

4. Good-Faith Estimates Need More Detail

The updated rules add requirements for good-faith estimates. Employers must include the date the estimate was provided to the covered employee and indicate whether the employee is expected to work any on-call shifts.

Good-faith estimates are often treated as a basic onboarding form, but they deserve more attention. These estimates help employees understand what their work schedule is expected to look like. If the estimate is vague, incomplete, or missing on-call expectations, the employer may have a compliance problem before the employee even works the first shift.

Employers should update templates for new hires and employees moving into covered positions. HR should also make sure managers understand that a good-faith estimate is not a casual guess. It should reflect a reasonable expectation based on available information.

5. Tipped and Dual-Role Work Must Be Tracked

The updated rules require employers to record whether a covered employee receives tips or performs duties in both tipped and non-tipped positions.

This is especially important for restaurants, hospitality, and other employers where employees may shift between roles. For example, an employee might work as a server on one shift and perform non-tipped duties on another. The employer’s records need to reflect those distinctions.

This change also reinforces a broader wage-and-hour reality: if employees work in different roles, at different rates, or under different pay structures, the employer needs clean records. “Everybody knows how we do it” is not a recordkeeping system. Cute, but no.

6. Short-Notice Schedules Are Clarified for Certain Transitions

The revised rules address situations involving new employees, employees returning from leave, and employees who are transferred, promoted, or assigned to a new job classification.

For new covered employees at hire, or existing covered employees returning from leave, the employer may provide a written work schedule with less than 14 days’ notice that runs through the last date of the currently posted work schedule. The same concept applies when existing covered employees are transferred, promoted, or assigned to a new job classification.

This is a helpful clarification for real-world operations. Employers do not always onboard, return, transfer, or promote employees exactly 14 days before a schedule cycle begins. The updated rule gives employers a clearer path for handling these transitions.

That said, employers should still document the reason for the shorter schedule notice and make sure the schedule only runs through the last date of the currently posted schedule.

7. Predictability Pay Rules Get More Specific

The revised rules clarify how predictability pay interacts with the regular rate of pay. For predictability pay purposes, the regular rate does not include overtime, holiday pay, or other premium rates. However, certain differentials, such as shift differentials for weekends or nights, are not treated as excluded premiums if they compensate the employee for working under different conditions.

The rules also clarify that predictability pay is not treated as another hour worked and does not affect accrual of paid leave or paid sick leave.

This is a payroll-system issue. Employers should not assume their current payroll configuration already handles this correctly. If predictability pay is being calculated, coded, or included incorrectly, the error may ripple into regular rate calculations, leave accruals, reporting, and paystub accuracy.

Covered employers should contact payroll vendors now and ask specifically how predictability pay is calculated and whether the system distinguishes between excluded premiums and included differentials.

8. Access-to-Hours Rules Are Clarified

Chicago’s ordinance includes an access-to-hours requirement, which generally requires covered employers to offer additional available shifts to covered employees before hiring new employees in certain situations.

The updated rules clarify two points. First, predictability pay is not required for shifts accepted through the access-to-hours process. Second, the access-to-hours requirement does not apply to hiring new covered employees at a new location within the city.

This matters for employers opening new Chicago locations or trying to staff additional hours. Operations teams should understand when the access-to-hours process applies and when it does not. Otherwise, employers may either overpay unnecessarily or, more concerning, skip a required process.

9. Right-to-Rest Consent Can Be Ongoing, But Must Be Revocable

The revised rules address the “right to rest” requirement. Under the ordinance, employees have protections when scheduled to work a shift that begins less than 10 hours after the end of the previous day’s shift. The updated rules clarify that written, voluntary consent may be situational or ongoing, as long as the employee can revoke consent at any time.

This gives employers some flexibility, but the consent must still be real, voluntary, written, and revocable.

Employers should review any right-to-rest consent forms to ensure they do not imply that consent is permanent or required as a condition of continued employment. A best practice is to include a clear revocation process and train managers not to pressure employees into consenting.

10. Recordkeeping Requirements Are Expanded

The updated rules add several recordkeeping expectations. Employers must maintain and produce records to the city upon request, including written consent for short-rest shifts, written consent to schedule changes, documentation showing compliance with schedule posting requirements, documents showing compliance with initial estimates and advance notice requirements, access-to-hours records, right-to-rest records, flexible work arrangement request records, and handbooks or manuals covering these policies.

This may be the most important practical takeaway.

A compliant policy is only step one. Employers also need records proving they followed the policy.

Managers should not be handling schedule changes through informal side conversations without documentation. If an employee agrees to a change, accepts additional hours, or consents to a short-rest shift, the employer needs a reliable way to capture and retain that information.

What Employers Should Do Before June 1

Covered Chicago employers should use the June 1, 2026 effective date as a prompt to conduct a focused compliance review.

Start by confirming whether the ordinance applies to your organization based on industry, employee count, covered employee count, location, and wage thresholds. Do not rely on last year’s analysis without checking current operations.

Next, review your scheduling system. Confirm that schedules are posted at least 14 days in advance when required, that posted schedules are time-stamped, and that managers understand how to document changes.

Update good-faith estimate templates to include the date provided and whether on-call shifts are expected.

Review payroll settings for predictability pay, regular rate treatment, shift differentials, and leave accrual impact.

Update right-to-rest consent forms and make sure employees can revoke ongoing consent.

Review access-to-hours procedures, especially for employers adding shifts or opening new locations.

Finally, train managers. Most Fair Workweek violations do not begin in the legal department. They begin when a supervisor makes a “quick schedule tweak” without realizing that tweak has legal consequences.

Bottom Line

Chicago’s updated Fair Workweek rules are technical, but they are not theoretical. They affect how schedules are created, posted, changed, documented, paid, and retained.

The biggest employer takeaways are:

Covered employers should review coverage calculations.

Schedules need reliable date-and-time posting records.

Good-faith estimates need additional detail.

Payroll systems must properly calculate predictability pay.

Right-to-rest consent must be written, voluntary, and revocable.

Access-to-hours procedures need to be clearly understood.

Recordkeeping must be strong enough to prove compliance.

For Chicago employers, June 1, 2026 is more than a policy deadline. It is an operations deadline. The employers in the best position will be the ones who align HR, payroll, scheduling managers, and vendors before the rule changes take effect.