No California statute gives HR a fixed number of days. There is no rule saying thirty days, sixty days or ninety. What the law requires instead is that the investigation be prompt, impartial and thorough, and that the employer act on what it finds. That sounds softer than a deadline. It is not. A company that lets a complaint sit is building the case against itself, because unreasonable delay is evidence that it failed the duty it does have.
This page explains what the rules actually say, what a reasonable timeline looks like week by week, which deadlines in your situation do have hard numbers, and what to do when HR goes quiet.
The legal standard is prompt, impartial and thorough
California's Fair Employment and Housing Act puts two separate duties on an employer. The first is to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent harassment and discrimination from happening at all. The second arrives the moment a complaint does: the employer must take immediate and appropriate corrective action. Those duties sit in Government Code section 12940, subdivisions (k) and (j)(1).
Notice what the second duty is attached to. It is not attached to the end of the investigation. The obligation to stop ongoing harm starts when the employer learns of the problem, not when it finishes deciding who was right. An employer that waits for a final report before separating you from the person you accused has usually misread its own obligation.
Why there is no fixed number of days
A single remark overheard by three people in one room can be investigated properly in a few days. An allegation spanning two years, four worksites and a dozen witnesses cannot. A rule of ninety days would be far too slow for the first and might be too fast for the second. So the law asks whether the employer moved reasonably given what it knew, rather than whether it hit a date on a calendar.
That is why the useful question is not how many days HR has. It is whether what HR did looks like a real investigation, and whether the delay is explained by the work or by the employer's indifference.
What the regulation actually requires
California has written the expectations down. Title 2 of the California Code of Regulations, section 11023, is the rule on harassment and discrimination prevention. It requires every covered employer's complaint process to provide, in the regulation's own words:
- a timely response
- impartial and timely investigations by qualified personnel
- documentation and tracking for reasonable progress
- appropriate options for remedial actions and resolutions
- timely closures
The same regulation requires the employer's written policy to say that when it receives allegations of misconduct it will conduct a fair, timely and thorough investigation, give everyone involved appropriate due process, and reach reasonable conclusions based on the evidence collected.
Read that list again as a checklist, because that is how it functions. Each phrase is something you can test against what actually happened to your complaint. Was there a response at all? Was the person investigating genuinely able to be impartial, or did they report to the person you accused? Is there any sign of documentation and tracking, or did nobody write anything down? Did it close, or did it simply stop?
Confidentiality is limited, and the policy must say so
The regulation also tells employers not to promise that an investigation will be completely confidential. They must keep it confidential to the extent possible, which is a different promise. If HR told you nobody would ever know, that was not a commitment the law allows them to make. Information will reach the people who need it to investigate.
What a reasonable timeline looks like in practice
No part of this is a legal deadline. It is the shape a competent investigation takes, and it gives you something to measure against.
The first few days
You should get an acknowledgment that the complaint was received, the name of the person handling it, and an answer about immediate protection. If you work alongside the person you accused, the question of separating you is a first-week question, not a final-report question. Anything that changes your pay, hours, shift or duties should be explained before it happens.
The first two to three weeks
Interviews happen: you first, then the person accused, then the witnesses either of you named. Documents get collected, which can mean messages, schedules, access logs, camera footage and personnel files. If there is footage, it often overwrites itself in two to four weeks, so that request cannot wait.
Weeks three to six
Follow-up interviews, a look at anything the accounts disagree about, and a decision on what the evidence shows. A straightforward matter is usually finished here. A longer one should still be producing updates.
The close
You should be told that the investigation has ended, in broad terms what was concluded, what the employer is doing about it, and how to report it if the conduct starts again. You are not automatically entitled to the full report. You are entitled to know it finished and that something happened as a result.
Against that shape, a simple matter running past six or eight weeks with no explanation is a signal. So is any investigation where nobody ever interviewed the witnesses you named.
What you can ask for while it runs
You do not have to simply endure the wait. Reasonable interim requests, put in writing, are both practical protection and a record of what the employer knew.
- A different reporting line, so you are not supervised by the person you accused.
- An end to one-to-one meetings or shared shifts with that person.
- Preservation of specific evidence: name the dates, the system and the location, especially for camera footage.
- Written confirmation of any schedule or duty change, with the reason given.
- A point of contact for new incidents, since the conduct can continue while the investigation runs.
Ask for protection rather than punishment. A transfer you requested is a reasonable accommodation of a difficult situation. A transfer imposed on you that cuts your hours, pay or prospects is a different thing entirely, and it may itself be retaliation. Our page on retaliation after a complaint covers where that line sits.
The deadlines that do have numbers
This is the part most workers have backward. The employer's investigation has no deadline. Your own rights do, and they are running while you wait.
| What | The limit | Why it matters now |
|---|---|---|
| Complaint to the Civil Rights Department | Three years from the unlawful act | This is the filing that lets you sue under California law later. It does not pause because HR is still looking. |
| Charge with the EEOC | Generally 300 days in California | Much shorter than the state clock. Waiting for an internal process can quietly end a federal claim. |
| Your personnel records | 30 days from a written request, 35 by agreement | Labor Code section 1198.5. Ask early, because the file can change while the matter is open. |
| Your pay records | 21 days from the request | Labor Code section 226. A separate request from the personnel file, on a separate clock. |
| Punishment after a protected complaint | 90 days | For complaints protected by Labor Code section 98.6, action against you inside 90 days is presumed retaliatory under SB 497. |
| Suing after a right to sue notice | One year | The clock starts with the notice, not with the end of the company's investigation. |
The practical consequence is simple. Nothing about HR's timetable protects yours. Calculate your own dates at the start, not at the end. The deadline checker on our sexual harassment page will work out the ordinary dates from the date of the incident.
What to send when HR goes quiet
Three weeks of silence is not proof of bad faith. It is a reason to create a record. Keep it short, factual and unemotional, and send it so that you can prove it was delivered.
Subject: Follow-up on my complaint of [date]
I reported [brief description] on [date] to [name]. I have not had an update since [date or "that date"]. Please confirm the current status, who is handling the investigation, and when I can expect it to conclude. I am also asking that [specific records or footage] be preserved while it is open. [If applicable: Since I reported, the following has happened: ...]
Send it to the person named in the policy, and to a second person if the policy allows it. If there is no policy you can find, that absence is itself worth noting, because the regulation requires one and requires that it be distributed.
Keep a copy of every message. Note the date of each verbal conversation and what was said. The point is not to be difficult. The point is that in six months the question will be what the employer knew and when, and memory is a poor substitute for a dated email.
When the delay stops being a delay and becomes the case
An employer facing a harassment claim often argues that it responded reasonably. Delay undercuts that defense, and in some situations it creates liability of its own.
Where the person who harassed you is a supervisor, the employer is strictly liable for the harassment itself, so its response is not what decides the case. Where the person is a coworker or a customer, the employer's liability turns precisely on what it knew and what it did about it. In that second situation, a complaint that sat untouched is close to the whole argument.
Separately, Government Code section 12940(k) makes failing to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment its own violation. And conduct that continues during a long investigation is not a frozen situation: the harm keeps accruing, and so does the record of the employer allowing it.
What makes delay look unreasonable
- Nobody interviewed the witnesses you identified.
- The investigation was handled by the person you accused, or by someone who reports to them.
- Evidence you asked to be preserved was allowed to be deleted or overwritten.
- You were moved, downgraded or had hours cut while the accused person's work was untouched.
- The employer has a written policy promising timeliness and ignored it.
- Previous complaints about the same person went the same way.
You do not have to wait for HR to finish
This is the single most useful thing on this page. Filing a complaint with the Civil Rights Department does not require you to exhaust the company's internal process first. You can file while the internal investigation is still open. You can file after HR has closed it against you. The two run on separate tracks.
People wait because waiting feels cooperative, and because nobody tells them the agency clock is running. Three years sounds like plenty until you realize the federal window is 300 days and an internal process can absorb six months without difficulty.
If you want the option of going to court rather than waiting for an agency investigation, you can request an immediate right to sue notice instead, which starts a one year period to file. Which route suits you depends on what you want out of it, and that is worth one conversation before you choose. Our comparison of the filing routes sets out what each office can and cannot do.
If they close it and tell you nothing happened
"Unsubstantiated" is an internal conclusion reached by the employer about itself. It is not a finding by a court or by the Civil Rights Department, and it does not end your rights.
What to do with it:
- Ask, in writing, whether the records and witnesses you identified were actually reviewed and interviewed.
- Send any correction or new evidence in writing, so that the file shows it was offered.
- Keep the closure notice. The date matters.
- Ask what you should do if the conduct resumes, and record the answer.
- Check your own filing dates, which are unaffected by the company's conclusion.
If the conduct continues after a closed investigation, that is a new incident with its own date, and the fact that the employer already knew about the earlier conduct makes the second round considerably worse for them.
Union members, public employees and very small employers
If you are in a union
A grievance under the contract and a legal claim do different jobs, and one does not preserve the other. A grievance receipt is not an agency filing. Ask for the contract, the grievance deadline and a copy of anything filed in your name, and tell your representative if you have also filed with an agency.
If you work for a city, county or the state
You may have a civil service or administrative process with its own deadlines, sometimes very short ones. Those run alongside the FEHA route rather than replacing it. Keep the internal case number and every notice, and get advice before letting any review deadline pass, because decisions made in an internal adjudication can matter later.
If the company is tiny
California's harassment protection reaches employers of any size, including a workplace with a single employee. A five person company with no HR department still owes you a complaint route and a response. "We are too small to investigate" is not a defense, although in practice it often means the owner is the person you are complaining about, which makes going outside the company the realistic step.
Questions people ask while they are waiting
No. No California statute sets a maximum number of days. The requirement is that the response and the investigation be timely, impartial and thorough, and that the employer take immediate and appropriate corrective action once it knows. Whether a particular delay was reasonable depends on the complexity of the complaint and what the employer did with the time.
Not automatically. A month of silence is not a violation on its own, but it is a fact worth recording, and it weakens the employer's position if it later claims it responded reasonably. Send a written follow-up asking for the status and the name of the investigator, and keep proof you sent it. If the conduct is continuing while you wait, say so in the same message.
No. You can file with the Civil Rights Department while the internal investigation is open. There is no requirement to exhaust the employer's process first, and your filing deadlines do not pause while HR works. The federal window at the EEOC is much shorter than the state one, which is the usual reason waiting causes harm.
Not automatically. A personnel records request under Labor Code section 1198.5 reaches records relating to your performance or to grievances concerning you, and must be answered within 30 days, but it does not guarantee access to every investigation document. Privacy, statutory exceptions and legal privilege can apply. Ask instead for the outcome, what steps were taken and what to do if the conduct resumes, and keep the request in writing.
An employer can ask people to be discreet while an investigation runs, and the regulation tells employers to keep it confidential to the extent possible. What it cannot do is promise you complete secrecy or use a confidentiality instruction to stop you reporting to a government agency or getting legal advice. If you were told you could not speak to anyone at all, write down who said it and when.
It depends on whether you asked for it and what it cost you. A separation you requested is protective. A move that reduces your pay, hours, responsibilities or prospects, imposed on you after you complained, can be an adverse action. For complaints protected by Labor Code section 98.6, an adverse action within 90 days of the protected activity is presumed retaliatory under SB 497, and the employer has to explain it.
Raise it in writing and ask for someone else, or for an outside investigator. The regulation requires impartial investigations by qualified personnel and a complaint route that does not force you to complain to your own supervisor. If the request is refused, that refusal becomes part of the record of how the complaint was handled.
Report each new incident separately and in writing, with its date. An ongoing investigation does not suspend the employer's duty to take immediate corrective action, and continuing conduct after a report is considerably more serious than the original complaint because the employer now knows. Ask again, in writing, for separation or another interim measure.
No. The agency and court deadlines run on their own. Three years to file with the Civil Rights Department, generally 300 days for an EEOC charge in California, and one year to sue after a right to sue notice. None of those wait for HR.
Four things. Keep a dated record of incidents and of every contact with HR. Request your personnel file and pay records in writing, which run on 30 and 21 day clocks. Ask in writing for any evidence that could be deleted to be preserved. And work out your own filing dates so that the choice of when to go to an agency is yours rather than the product of a delay.
If the wait has already cost you something
If your hours changed, you were moved, you were written up, or the conduct carried on while the complaint sat, the delay has stopped being an administrative annoyance and has become part of a claim. Bring what you have: the original report, anything HR sent back, your own record of dates, and your pay records if the money changed.
A free review will tell you where your real deadlines fall, whether what happened after you complained is retaliation, and whether to file now or wait. Call (800) 371-3088 or send what you have.
Related reading: what to do when HR does nothing at all, what happens after you report to HR, how to document workplace harassment, what happens when someone is accused, the rights of witnesses, text messages and emails as evidence, and the full California sexual harassment guide.
Sources
- California Code of Regulations, title 2, section 11023, harassment and discrimination prevention regulations: timely response, impartial and timely investigations by qualified personnel, documentation and tracking for reasonable progress, timely closures, and the required policy terms.
- California Civil Rights Department, Harassment Prevention Guide (March 2025): investigation practice, interviews, confidentiality and corrective action.
- California Civil Rights Department, Complaint Process: filing, investigation and appeal, including the ten day appeal window after a notice of case closure.
- California Civil Rights Department, Employment: coverage, the three year filing period and available remedies.
- U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Time Limits for Filing a Charge: the 300 day period that applies in California.
- California Department of Industrial Relations, Personnel Files and Records: Labor Code sections 1198.5 and 226, and the 30 day and 21 day response periods.
- California Department of Industrial Relations, Laws Prohibiting Retaliation and Discrimination: Labor Code sections 98.6, 1102.5 and 1197.5.
- Judicial Council of California, Civil Jury Instructions (2026): employer liability for supervisor and coworker harassment, and the failure to prevent claim under Government Code section 12940(k).
Legal Disclaimer: This page is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Employment law is complex and fact-specific. The information on this page reflects California law as of 2026 and may change. If you believe your rights have been violated, please consult a licensed California employment attorney to evaluate your specific situation.