The 2024 legislative session has ended, with hundreds of bills being signed into law. These new laws cover a broad spectrum of issues, including labor and employment, and are set to have a significant impact on California businesses in 2025. Furthermore, several noteworthy mid-year changes in 2024 have reshaped the employment law landscape.
While providing sick leave in California is mandatory, offering other forms of paid time – such as vacation time and personal time – is not required. Still, employers often ask whether there are rules they must follow when offering these additional forms of time off as job benefits. And for those employers choosing to combine vacation time, mandatory sick time and personal time into a single bank of days for employees to use at their discretion (often referred to as PTO), what should they consider?
A California law enacted in 2016 directed the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) to adopt workplace standards related to the prevention and mitigation of heat illness for indoor workplaces. Cal/OSHA has nearly completed that directive and the Heat Illness Prevention in Indoor Places of Employment standards took effect in 2024.
This new standard, which applies to all indoor work areas where the temperature equals or exceeds 82 degrees Fahrenheit, is separate and distinct from the Heat Illness Prevention in Outdoor Places of Employment standards that have been in effect for years. Although each set of standards are designed to prevent and mitigate heat illness in the workplace, they are not the same. The indoor workplace standards create different and new requirements that are not found in the outdoor workplace standards.
“Reasonable accommodations” and the “interactive process” are buzzwords often heard in the workplace, but what do they really mean? When do they apply? And what steps should an employer take if they either receive a reasonable accommodation request from an employee or think an employee might need an accommodation?
California and federal law require covered employers to reasonably accommodate for known disabilities of applicants or employees who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of either the position they hold or the position for which they are applying — unless the employer can demonstrate that doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer’s business. Covered employers have a similar obligation to reasonably accommodate an employee or applicant’s religious creed, belief, observance, or practice.
