California Implements New Indoor Heat Illness Prevention Plan Requirements

By Swerdlow Florence Sanchez Swerdlow & Wimmer

August 6, 2024

On June 20, 2024, California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board approved a new “Heat Illness Prevention in Indoor Places of Employment” standard (the “Standard”). This novel Standard, which is similar to Cal/OSHA’s Outdoor heat Illness standard, went into effect on July 23, 2024, and requires most employers to take steps to prevent employee exposure to the risk of heat illness while indoors. Covered employers must develop and implement an effective Indoor Heat Illness Prevention Plan (“IHIPP”). The individual requirements of each employer’s IHIPP are dependent on each employer’s or indoor workplace’s unique environmental risk factors and the employer’s ability to respond to those risk factors.

Indoor Heat Illness Standard Applicability:

While the Standard does not explicitly divide employers and indoor workplaces into separate groups, through the various exceptions in the standard, employers and indoor workplaces are effectively divided into three separate groups. Analyzing these three different groups can help an employer determine if the Standard applies to the employer, and if so, with which portions of the Standard their IHIPP must comply. Though the groups as described below do not include every detail an employer must use to determine applicability under the Standard, the following general summary of the groups gives a helpful overview:

Group 1:
•    Indoor workplaces where the temperature is below 82 degrees while employees are present;
•    Places of employment where an employee is teleworking from a location of the employee’s choice (e.g., the employee’s home);
•    Certain instances where employees are incidentally exposed to temperatures up to 94 degrees for less than 15 minutes in any 60-minute period (including in vehicles with functioning A/C);
•    Certain emergency operations; and
•    Certain prisons, detention facilities, and juvenile facilities.

Group 2:
•    Indoor workplaces where the temperature is equal to or exceeds 82 degrees that do not otherwise fit any of the descriptions of Groups 1 or 3.

Group 3:
•    Indoor workplaces where the temperature and/or heat index equals or exceeds 87 degrees when employees are present;
•    Indoor workplaces that equal or exceed 82 degrees and where employees wear clothing that restricts heat removal (in general, full-body clothing designed to be fully thermal, vapor, or moisture-proof); or
•    Indoor workplaces where employees work in a high radiant heat area where the temperature equals or exceeds 82 degrees.

Those employers and/or workplaces that fall under Group 1 are exempt from all the IHIPP requirements of the Standard. We expect that Group 1 will cover most professional offices and buildings with adequate A/C.Those employers and/or workspaces that fall under Group 2 must comply with only the basic

IHIPP requirements as summarized below. Those employers and/or workspaces that fit one or more of the conditions listed in Group 3 must comply with all IHIPP requirements under the Standard.

Basic IHIPP Requirements:

There are 5 basic requirements applicable to both Groups 2 and 3. However, the implementation of these basic requirements will differ based on the individual facts and circumstances of each indoor workplace.

1.    Water – Employers must provide suitably cool, potable water, free of charge to all employees at the workplace. The water source should be located as close as practicable to the areas where employees are working and any indoor cool-down areas. If any such water source is not plumbed, an employer must ensure that it supplies at least the equivalent of one quart per employee per hour for an employee’s entire shift.
2.    Cool-Down Areas – Employers shall maintain and provide access to cool-down areas for employee use. These areas must be large enough to accommodate all employees actively on recovery, rest periods, and/or meal breaks. These areas must be maintained at less than 82 degrees while employees are present, unless the employer demonstrates that it is infeasible to do so.
3.    Emergency Response – Employers shall implement effective emergency response procedures related to the risk of heat illness indoors, which should include communication procedures, means, and procedures for identifying and responding to symptoms of possible heat illness, and procedures for contacting and working with emergency medical responders.
4.    Training – Employers must effectively train their employees on topics such as the contents of the IHIPP, how to identify potential heat-exposure and heat-illness risk factors, and how to mitigate and respond to heat exposure and heat illness. This training must be provided before an employee begins any work that should reasonably be anticipated to result in exposure to the risk of heat illness.
5.    Access to IHIPP – Employers must establish, implement, maintain, and provide employee access to an effective IHIPP. The IHIPP must be in writing in both English and the language understood by the majority of employees. The IHIPP can be a stand-alone plan or can be incorporated into an employer’s existing Injury and Illness Prevention Plan and/or (Outdoor) Heat Illness Prevention Plan.

Additional Requirements for Group 3:

IHIPPs covering workspaces that fit one or more of the conditions listed in Group 3 must also implement certain assessment and control measures. The goal of these assessment and control measures is, to the extent feasible, to reduce and maintain the temperature and heat index to below 87 degrees when employees are present, or to reduce the temperature to below 82 degrees where employees either wear clothing that restricts heat removal, or work in high radiant heat areas (collectively, the “Goal Temperature”).

The Standard has set a number of different means to achieve this Goal Temperature, which essentially range from most to least effective at removing or reducing the heat exposure hazard. The most effective means are those deemed “Engineering Controls” which can include the use of A/C, swamp coolers, cooling mist fans, extractor fans, the creation of barriers, or other means that actually remove or reduce the heat hazard. Employers are required to first implement these Engineering controls to the extent feasible. If the feasible Engineering Controls are not completely effective at achieving the Goal Temperature, employers must incorporate other means that either reduce the employee’s exposure to the heat risk, or at least acclimatize employees to the heat. For example, an employer may adjust work practices or procedures, rotate employees, or change work schedules so that employees spend less time exposed to heat or are exposed to lower heat. An employer could also change any required clothing so that the clothing does not restrict heat removal, and/or an employer can provide employees with personal heat protective equipment like cooling vests or supplied air personal cooling systems.

While the Standard gives examples of various control measures, each employer and/or workspace must incorporate a unique combination of these control measures to best achieve the Goal Temperature and reduce the risk of heat illness.

Conclusion:

Overall, whether an employer is required to create an Indoor Heat Illness Prevention Plan, and when applicable, what employers must do to create and implement such a plan, depends on the actual environmental risk factors of each workspace. Employers should carefully analyze their environmental risk factors to determine whether this Standard is applicable their workplaces, and if so, the requirements under the Standard, to determine how to best protect their employees from the risk of heat illness indoors.

Additionally, because this is a newly implemented Standard, Cal/OSHA is still developing their guidance and determining how the Standard’s requirements will be enforced.

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