Employee Relations

California Employee Relations and HR Process - Employer Counsel

Employee relations problems rarely arrive labeled as legal claims. They usually start as a manager-employee personality conflict, a performance issue, an inconsistent discipline pattern, or a complaint HR thinks is overblown - and then, weeks or months later, they surface as a discrimination claim, a retaliation claim, a constructive discharge claim, or a wage-and-hour exposure. The pattern is consistent: process failure precedes legal exposure.

How We Approach Employee Relations Counsel

Michael Trust draws on more than 35 years of HR leadership across multiple industries, and on the SPHR, PHRca, and SHRM-SCP credentials, to advise California employers on the operational mechanics of employee relations: discipline consistency, performance documentation, investigation discipline, manager training, and the design of HR processes that produce defensible records before disputes arise. The advisory work is primarily preventive and policy-focused, rather than reactive to claims.

Handbook Review

A periodic review of the employee handbook - confirming that leave, accommodation, harassment-reporting, and discipline policies match current California law - is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce employee-relations exposure before it becomes a claim. Michael Trust Law, APC reviews existing handbooks against current California requirements, including Cal. Gov’t Code § 12940 (FEHA), and flags provisions that are outdated, missing, or inconsistent with how the business actually operates.

Workplace Safety Programs

California requires written safety programs. Three of them reach almost every business: an injury and illness prevention program, a workplace violence prevention plan, and heat illness protections.

On this page: Injury and Illness Prevention Program | Workplace Violence Prevention Plan | Heat Illness Prevention

Injury and Illness Prevention Program

Every California employer must maintain a written injury and illness prevention program, often called an IIPP. The program must name the person in charge, explain how you find and correct hazards, train employees, and investigate injuries, and it must let employees report hazards without fear of punishment. Employees may ask to see the program, and you must provide it within five business days.

Small employers receive some flexibility. With fewer than 10 employees, you may explain general safe work practices orally instead of in writing, and some employers with fewer than 20 employees may keep less paperwork.

Workplace Violence Prevention Plan

Nearly every California employer must also maintain a written workplace violence prevention plan for each work area. You may include the plan as a stand-alone section of your injury and illness prevention program, or you may keep it as a separate document. You must train employees when the plan begins and again every year, you must keep a log of every violent incident, and you must keep hazard records and incident logs for five years and training records for one year.

Two exemptions come up often. You do not need a plan for employees who work remotely from a place you do not control. You also do not need a plan for a workplace that has fewer than 10 employees present at any one time and is not accessible to the public, if you follow the injury and illness prevention rules. For example, a place where a USPS, UPS, or FedEx driver can walk in is accessible to the public.

The state must adopt detailed standards for these plans by December 31, 2026, so expect the requirements to change.

Heat Illness Prevention

Outdoor workplaces must provide drinking water, shade when the temperature exceeds 80 degrees, cool-down rest breaks, training, and a written heat plan. Agriculture, construction, landscaping, oil and gas, and heavy-material delivery carry added rules at 95 degrees.

Indoor workplaces have rules too. They begin at 82 degrees when employees are present, and the full rules apply at 87 degrees, or at 82 degrees for employees who wear clothing that traps heat or who work in a high radiant heat area.

When you do not allow a required cool-down rest, you owe the employee one extra hour of pay for that day, and you cannot punish an employee for raising a heat concern.

If this or other issues arise in your workplace, contact Michael Trust Law, APC for help with resolving them or for a compliance review.

When to Contact Us

If your business is facing a difficult personnel matter, or wants to audit HR practices proactively, contact Michael Trust Law, APC.

If your business has an employment matter that needs attention, contact Michael Trust Law, APC. That includes a lawsuit, a demand letter, or a letter or charge from an agency, where deadlines can be short, so please call or email right away. It also includes a compliance review, a handbook, a policy, or a workforce decision that you want done right the first time. A no-charge consultation is a first conversation about your own situation, and we will tell you whether and how we can help. Interpreting these laws for your business is legal work, and we do it as part of an engagement.

No attorney-client relationship exists until a fee agreement is fully executed by all parties. See Disclaimers.

Cal. Lab. Code § 2802 (work expense reimbursement, when applicable to employee relations); Cal. Gov’t Code § 12940 (FEHA - when claims arise from employee relations breakdowns); Cal. Lab. Code § 6401.9 (Workplace Violence Prevention Plan). Cal. Code Regs. tit. 8, §§ 3203, 3395, 3396; Cal. Lab. Code §§ 226.7 (opens in a new tab), 6310 (opens in a new tab)-6312 (opens in a new tab), 6401.7 (opens in a new tab).