Don’t Forget the March 30 Emergency Contact Deadline
Most employers already collect emergency contact information during onboarding. It is one of those routine HR forms that gets completed on day one and then quietly sits in a personnel file. Until now. A new California requirement means that emergency contact forms are no longer just administrative paperwork. They are now part of your legal compliance obligations. By March 30, 2026, you must give current employees the opportunity to designate an emergency contact and indicate whether that person should be notified if you have actual knowledge that the employee has been arrested or detained during work hours. Going forward, you must provide the same opportunity to employees at the time of hire. If you have not updated your forms yet, now is a good time to take a look. What the Law Requires The rule itself is fairly straightforward. You must give employees the opportunity to: designate an emergency contact update that contact information during employment indicate whether that contact sh...