California lawmakers continue to remake the employment landscape, enacting several new laws for 2022, including ones that change how employers handle separation agreements, workplace investigations, and workplace safety. Here are the significant new laws that human resource professionals should prepare to implement come January 1, 2022.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Disparagement Provisions in Settlement, Separation, and Asset Protection Agreements (SB 331)

Since 2019, California law has restricted the use of confidentiality provisions—also called nondisclosure agreements (NDAs)—in settlement agreements involving claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sex discrimination. As explained in our earlier advisory, effective January 1, 2022, SB 331 expands the restriction in several ways.

• Restrictions in settlement agreements now pertain to any form of prohibited workplace harassment, discrimination, or retaliation for reporting or opposing such harassment or discrimination.
• Confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions in separation agreements and asset protection/trade secret agreements cannot contain provisions that have the purpose or effect of restricting discussion or disclosure of information about harassment, discrimination, or other perceived forms of unlawful conduct in the workplace, and must include specific wording to that effect.
• Requiring an employee to prospectively release a claim or right under the Fair Employment and Housing Act is prohibited under the...

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