By McKinley Malbrough III, J.D., MS-HRM
Posted October 26, 2026.
Short answer
In the first 30 days, a Bay Area HR consultant should learn your business, scan it for legal risk, fix the gaps that carry penalties and leave you with a calendar. In my work, week one is intake, a risk scan and a calendar, and by day 30 you hold documents and decisions, not advice.
In the first 30 days, a Bay Area HR consultant should learn your business, scan it for legal risk, fix the gaps that carry penalties and leave you with a calendar. In my work, week one is intake, a risk scan and a calendar. By day 30 you hold documents and decisions, not advice.
I am Mac Malbrough. I hold a J.D. and an MS-HRM, I am not an attorney, and I live and work in Oakland. This describes how I run the first month with an employer of 10 to 100 people in Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose or Walnut Creek. It is my method, and you can use it as a yardstick for any HR help you hire.
Three things happen, in this order: intake, a risk scan and a calendar. I do not change a single policy in week one, because I do not yet know what is true about your business.
Intake is a conversation and a document request. I ask how many people you employ, in which cities, how they are paid and who manages them. I ask for your handbook if you have one, your offer letters, a payroll register, your job descriptions and your posting and training records. I also ask what keeps you up at night, because the answer usually points at the real risk.
The risk scan reads those documents against California law and the rules of each city where you have employees. I look first at the items that carry penalties: how people are classified, whether wage statements are complete, how final pay is handled, whether the written policies the state requires are in place, and whether required training has happened. For the state side, my guide to the California HR compliance checklist shows the full list.
The calendar closes the week. It lists every date in the next 12 months that touches payroll, notices, training and leave, including the state minimum wage change on January 1 and any local rate changes that fall on other dates.
The gaps that cost money or create legal exposure, in order of penalty. I rank them from the scan and work through the list in weeks two and three.
For most employers this means four kinds of fixes. First, classification: who is exempt, who is not, and whether the salary clears the line. My guide to the 2027 exempt salary threshold shows how that test works. Second, the written policies California requires, which I cover in my guide to what a California employee handbook must include. Third, pay practices: wage statements, meal and rest breaks, final pay. Fourth, hiring paperwork: offer letters, job postings and the notices that must go to a new hire.
Anything I cannot fix in 30 days goes on a written plan with an owner and a date. A fix that lives in my head helps no one when I am not in the room.
Because the Bay Area is a patchwork, and the same employee can be covered by different rules depending on where the work happens. I check the city for every worksite before I trust any state-level answer.
Take minimum wage. The state rate is $16.90 an hour in 2026 and rises to $17.40 on January 1, 2027, per the Department of Industrial Relations and its 2027 announcement. Oakland’s rate is $17.34 an hour in 2026 per the City of Oakland, effective January 1. San Francisco’s rate is $19.61 an hour from July 1, 2026, per the city’s minimum wage ordinance page. San Jose publishes its own rate and enforces it through the Office of Equality Assurance, so I read the current figure there on the day I need it.
The dates differ as well. Oakland changes on January 1, and San Francisco changes on July 1. A calendar built for one city misses the other, so I build one per city.
Local rules go well beyond wages. San Francisco’s Paid Sick Leave Ordinance sets accrual at one hour for every 30 hours worked, with a cap of 72 hours for employers with 10 or more employees. The city’s Health Care Security Ordinance requires employers with 20 or more workers to spend a minimum amount on health care. Oakland’s Measure FF covers minimum wage and sick leave and also requires hospitality employers that collect service charges to pay them to the employees who provided the service, per the city’s page.
DIR itself notes that some cities and counties have minimum wages higher than the state rate, so the city check comes first. I keep a plain-English page for each city, starting with Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Emeryville and Berkeley. My overview of Bay Area local employment ordinances compares them side by side. For a worksite in a city I have not checked, such as Walnut Creek, I look for a local rule first and use the state rule when I find none.
You hand over the facts, and you get back decisions. I ask for these before the end of week one.
By day 30 you hold a short stack of documents and a list of decisions. The documents are a ranked risk list, a corrected set of handbook sections, a classification list, a local rules sheet for each city where you have staff, a one-page guide for your managers and a 12-month compliance calendar. The decisions are the items only you can make: who gets reclassified, which policies you want to adopt and who owns each task going forward.
I write each item so a new office manager can read it cold. If the work only makes sense with me in the room, it is not finished. Your files are yours, and you should be able to run the calendar without calling me.
It depends on headcount, number of cities and how much of the scan turns up work, so I do not quote a number in a blog post. I explain how HR consultants price their work in my guide to how much HR consultants charge, and I cover the fractional model, where you buy a set number of hours a month, in my guide to fractional HR cost in the Bay Area. My HR price estimator gives you a range for your headcount.
Ask any consultant what you will have in hand on day 30, in writing. If the answer is a meeting and a promise, keep looking.
Start the intake yourself, even if you never hire anyone.
If you want the risk scan done for you, my HR compliance check-up is the first-month scan as a stand-alone service. If you want me to carry the calendar and the fixes over the following months, my fractional HR service does that.
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.
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This post is my view, written as general information. It is not legal advice.
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