The California legislature recently passed a wave of mandates that fundamentally alter how companies must handle bereavement leave, sex discrimination, immigration-related retaliation, and workplace safety.
Distributing outdated internal policies means publishing non-compliant rules to your workforce, which can create a paper trail of labor code violations.
Keep reading to learn about key policy updates and what changed; we even provide a checklist for rolling out your revised handbook.
Expanding Leave & Anti-Discrimination Protections
Bereavement Leave Now Covers Chosen Family
Starting January 1, 2027, covered employers with five or more employees must expand their bereavement leave policies to include more than the traditional nuclear family. Under SB 1149, leave now covers the death of a "designated person."
The state defines this as any individual related to the employee by blood or someone whose association with the employee is equivalent to a family relationship, such as a godparent, lifelong friend, or the aunt who raised them.
Employers may limit workers to one designated person per 12-month period, but this new category must explicitly appear in updated time-off policies.
Modernizing EEO & Harassment Policies
Under AB 2563, the state expanded the statutory definition of sex discrimination to address sex and gender stereotypes, alongside specific pregnancy-related and reproductive-health characteristics or decisions. Incorporating these protections into training materials and handbook definitions is key to mitigating discrimination claims.
Anti-Retaliation for Immigration Status
Under AB 2495, employers face strict prohibitions against threats and coercive conduct based on a worker's actual or perceived immigration status. If your handbook contains a code of conduct or anti-retaliation section, you must update it to prohibit conduct that might discourage workers from exercising their rights based on immigration status.
Rewriting the Rules on Workplace Safety
AB 1961 expands an employer’s ability to seek workplace violence restraining orders. Previously, the law tightly restricted these to situations involving an individually identified employee. The new legislation allows employers to seek court intervention when threats target the workplace generally.
Our attorneys guide operations teams through updating written workplace violence prevention plans and threat-reporting procedures. We focus on drafting clear guidelines that empower managers to rapidly escalate general threats and enable legal counsel to intervene and protect the facility.
Updating Acceptable Use & Workplace Privacy Policies
Many standard employee handbooks contain broad "Acceptable Use" or "No Expectation of Privacy" clauses that give employers blanket permission to monitor company devices and premises. In 2027, those generic clauses conflict with new state privacy mandates.
California now prohibits certain types of employee monitoring. Under AB 1331, surveillance tools in workplace bathrooms are broadly banned. For tech-forward companies, AB 1883 prohibits software tools that use AI to infer workers’ emotional states or collect neural data.
If your handbook implies that the company can monitor employees in these restricted ways, you may be putting a legally invalid policy in writing. We help operations and HR teams revise technology and privacy sections to clearly define the legal boundaries of company surveillance.
2027 Handbook Compliance Checklist for HR Teams
Distributing compliant policies on January 1 requires a comprehensive review process in Q4. Simply appending a quick memo to an old handbook can create confusion and weaken your defense in a dispute. A thorough review can help your leadership team implement changes strategically. Below are critical updates to prioritize:
- Revise bereavement definitions. Update paid or unpaid time-off policies to include "designated persons" alongside immediate family members.
- Broaden anti-discrimination language. Incorporate protections for reproductive-health decisions and gender stereotypes into EEO and anti-harassment sections.
- Update anti-retaliation guidelines. Add prohibitions against threats related to immigration status to manager training and employee conduct codes.
- Align safety protocols with AB 1961. Rewrite workplace violence response procedures to outline how your company will handle and report threats.
- Prepare for 2028 harassment training (AB 1803). While not effective until 2028, coordinate with your training vendors now to incorporate anti-hate-speech content into mandatory harassment prevention programs.
A Handbook Built for Your Workforce
A handbook template from the internet can’t account for your workforce, technology, or the claims you’re most likely to face. At Strategy Law, LLP, we review handbooks policy by policy, flag outdated language, and draft updates that fit how your business operates. Because our firm includes employment and business lawyers, we work to align monitoring and AI policies with the software contracts behind them. We offer bilingual support to prepare Spanish-language policies for your diverse workforce.
Don’t head into 2027 with an outdated handbook. Call (408) 478-4104 to schedule a consultation with our employer-side attorneys.