It’s time to replace these handbooks for 2026 and whereas there are quite a few new legal guidelines California employers should adjust to, not all of them are, what I name, “handbook worthy.” Listed here are three adjustments I’m making to this 12 months’s handbooks to remain compliant and guarantee insurance policies are clear for all staff.
First, below the new Civil Rights Division laws that took impact October 1, 2025, it’s prohibited for employers to make use of automated-decision techniques (ADS) similar to AI instruments in hiring, promotion or different employment-related selections if these techniques discriminate in opposition to candidates or staff based mostly on protected traits below the Truthful Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). Employers should retain ADS-related knowledge (together with screening knowledge, outcomes, vendor stories) for a minimum of 4 years and distributors of such instruments could also be handled as “brokers” of the employer, making the employer liable. Due to this, our handbooks’ non-discrimination/EEO coverage might be expanded to say that any use of software program, algorithm or automated instrument in recruitment, promotions, efficiency or termination selections should be rigorously vetted to make sure no disparate influence; that staff could ask about use of such instruments; and that the corporate will preserve acceptable documentation and oversight.
Second, AB 406 expands upon final 12 months’s AB 2499 laws reorganizing California’s crime sufferer day off and lodging legislation. This legislation prohibits employers from retaliating in opposition to or terminating an worker who’s a sufferer or a member of the family of a sufferer taking day off as a way to attend judicial proceedings associated to that crime. AB 406 creates a distinct definition of “sufferer” which incorporates being subjected to certainly one of 14 completely different crimes. It additionally revises discover necessities below California’s jury obligation legislation, requiring affordable advance discover, until the “advance discover will not be possible.”
Third, given the passage of SB 648, amending Labor Code part 351, which empowers the state labor commissioner to analyze and challenge citations and fines for tip theft, we advocate making certain all tip insurance policies and swimming pools are clear and in writing. Handbook insurance policies ought to make clear that suggestions left by patrons (together with credit-card suggestions) are the only property of the worker, that the employer or its managers could not deduct credit-card processing charges or take any portion of the information, and that suggestions paid through bank card should be paid to the worker no later than the subsequent common payday following the date the patron approved the fee.
These updates are supposed to preserve handbook language aligned with California’s evolving employment-law panorama and cut back authorized danger for the upcoming 12 months.