California employers have about ten weeks before the 2027 laws take effect: what to do first

Most of the employment bills the Governor signed in 2026 take effect on January 1, 2027, and from October 22 that is about ten weeks away. That is enough time to do this well, and not enough to start in December. Below is the order I would work in if I ran a small California business: confirm what applies, update your documents, retrain your supervisors, check your postings and put the dates on a calendar. For the full list of what changed, read my guide to the 2027 California employment laws. This post is the work plan.

Which 2026 bills are actually law?

Only bills the Governor signed are law, and I name only those I confirmed on the California Legislative Information site on October 22, 2026. The Governor finished acting on bills on September 30, and the site shows each of these as approved and chaptered:

• SB 947 (automated decision systems), approved September 30, 2026, Chapter 859.
• AB 1331 (workplace surveillance), approved September 30, 2026, Chapter 851.
• AB 2495 (unlawful immigration-related practices), approved September 29, 2026, Chapter 748.
• SB 1149 (bereavement leave), approved September 27, 2026, Chapter 679.

The Governor’s own legislative updates also list AB 1697 (stay-or-pay) and SB 1237 (Civil Rights Department pay data penalties) as signed on September 30. Ogletree Deakins’ summary of the signed bills gives the effective dates I use below. Two items I covered separately: the AB 1940 veto, which changed nothing, and AB 2155 on arbitration agreements.

Step 1: Which of these laws apply to your headcount?

Start by sorting the laws by who they reach, because a five-person shop and a 120-person company do not share a to-do list. Write your California headcount at the top of a page and mark each item as applies, applies later or does not apply.

• Laws that reach every employer: the $17.40 state minimum wage and the $72,384 exempt salary floor, bereavement leave, immigration-related retaliation rules and the bathroom surveillance ban.
• Laws that reach employers that use certain software: SB 947, which Ogletree reports becomes operative July 1, 2027.
• Laws that reach larger employers only: pay data reporting applies at 100 or more employees, and SB 1237 raises the penalty for repeat failures to file, according to Ogletree, to as much as $1,000 per employee.

My table of California HR laws by headcount shows where the older thresholds at 5, 15 and 100 employees sit, so you can see the new items against the rules you already follow.

Step 2: What belongs in your handbook and offer templates?

Update the handbook and the templates that new hires sign, because those are the documents a claim starts with. Make four edits and date each one.

• Bereavement leave: SB 1149 lets an employee name a designated person. Ogletree reports that an employer may limit this to one designated person per 12 months. Check your current policy language against the bill text.
• Immigration-related retaliation: add a line that bars conduct tied to a worker’s actual or perceived immigration status that would discourage them from exercising workplace rights. The statute now covers applicants and former employees too, according to Ogletree.
• Monitoring tools: if you use cameras, trackers or wearables, write down where they are used and confirm none reach a workplace bathroom.
• Offer letters and bonus agreements: AB 1697 applies the stay-or-pay limits to contracts entered on or after January 1, 2027, so rewrite repayment clauses once, against the final rules.

Do not rewrite the whole handbook for these. Change the sections that moved, add the date, and keep the old version on file.

Step 3: Who needs retraining before January?

Every person who supervises, schedules or disciplines needs a short briefing, because a policy that only HR knows about does not protect you. Thirty minutes covers it. Give supervisors the new bereavement leave request process, the immigration retaliation rule, and one clear instruction on software.

• Do not discipline or fire on the output of a scoring or monitoring tool alone. SB 947 is aimed at that, and a person has to check the facts.
• Send any leave request that names a designated person to HR the same day.
• Route any comment about a worker’s immigration status to HR, and do not act on it.

The harassment prevention training topic added by AB 1803, signed September 27, 2026, starts in 2028. Your 2027 training follows the current topics, so do not buy a new course yet.

Step 4: Which posters and notices should you check?

Check the minimum wage posting first, because the rate changes on January 1. The Labor Commissioner’s Office says employers must post the statewide minimum wage order and the wage order for their industry where employees can see them, and that both can be printed from the Department of Industrial Relations’ workplace postings page. Its August 13, 2026 release also says the Workplace Know Your Rights Act, effective in 2026, requires an annual notice to workers on top of the required postings.

• Download the current wage order and minimum wage notice in the first week of January, and replace the old ones.
• Confirm your city’s minimum wage. Local rates higher than the state’s apply, and several cities post new rates in the fall.
• Check that the annual Know Your Rights notice went out this year, and note the date.
• Update payroll for $17.40, and check every exempt salary against $72,384.

If you have a workplace violence prevention plan, confirm it and your incident log are current. I track the December 31 Standards Board deadline in my post on the draft Cal/OSHA standard.

Step 5: Which dates belong on your calendar?

Put five dates on a calendar now, with a reminder two weeks before each, because the work is easy and the deadlines are not forgiving.

1. December 31, 2026: the Standards Board’s statutory deadline to adopt a workplace violence standard, per Cal/OSHA’s page.
2. January 1, 2027: the new minimum wage, the exempt salary floor, and most of the bills above.
3. January 14, 2027: my free California law update for the quarter.
4. July 1, 2027: the date SB 947’s automated decision rules become operative, per Ogletree.
5. January 1, 2028: the anti-hate speech training topic starts under AB 1803.

If you want a second set of eyes on all of it at once, my compliance checklist is the free place to start.

Which items do most small employers skip?

In my view most small employers skip three things: retraining supervisors, rewriting offer and bonus templates, and listing the software that watches or scores employees. Every one of them is cheap and easy to put off, because nothing is due until a dispute arrives.

• Supervisors learn the new rules from the handbook, if they read it, and a manager who has not been told is the most likely route to a claim.
• Templates sit in a shared folder untouched, so December signings use the old language.
• Nobody lists the tools, so nobody knows which ones SB 947 or AB 1331 might reach.

Pick one of the three this week. I am not an attorney, and this is not legal advice, so for any item with real exposure, check the bill text or ask someone who is.

Two companion guides go deeper on items from this list: what a California employee handbook must include, for the policy edits, and the California exempt salary threshold for 2027, for the salary line that moves on January 1.

Add three items to this list: audit repayment agreements using California’s stay-or-pay rules for 2027, review layoff notice templates using what a technology displacement layoff notice must say under SB 951, and inventory monitoring tools using the 2027 ban on emotion recognition tools at work under AB 1883. Two more checks belong on the list: test each 1099 worker with a worker-by-worker method for testing contractor status, and review your separation steps with a California offboarding checklist.

Six of the bills above now have their own guides, covering AB 2150 and naloxone training, designated person bereavement leave, SB 1444 and misclassification penalties, pay data report penalties, the wider sex discrimination definition and the AB 1331 bathroom surveillance ban.

Sources

• California Legislative Information, bill status pages for SB 947, AB 1331, AB 2495 and SB 1149, read October 22, 2026
• Governor’s legislative update, September 30, 2026
• Governor’s legislative update, September 27, 2026
• Ogletree Deakins, California Governor signs array of employment bills
• California Department of Industrial Relations, release 2026-66, August 13, 2026

McKinley holds a J.D. but is not a licensed attorney. Articles here are general information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, talk with an employment attorney.