Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 553, creating a new general industry workplace violence prevention standard. As previously reported, effective July 1, 2024, California employers need to implement and maintain a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan, which they may incorporate into their Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) or maintain as a separate document. Employers are also required to conduct workplace violence training and create workplace violence incident logs.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) is responsible for enforcing this new law. To help employers with drafting their plan, Cal/OSHA recently published a model workplace violence prevention plan along with fact sheets. Similar to Cal/OSHA’s model COVID-19 Prevention Plan, the model workplace violence prevention plan contains:
- An overview of the law;
- Directions for drafting the plan;
- Key legal definitions; and
- A framework of all required plan components with areas for employers to customize the plan based on their particular worksite.
Employers are not required to use Cal/OSHA’s model workplace violence prevention plan, but it may help employers start drafting their plan. In addition to fill-in-the-blank prompts for the employer’s information, the model workplace violence prevention plan contains questions and examples that may be helpful to employers considering how to set up their plan.
Cal/OSHA’s employer fact sheet details the requirements of the new law, including what information must be included in the workplace violence prevention plan, violent incident log requirements, training employees on workplace violence, recordkeeping requirements, and additional related information and resources.
July 1 will be here before you know it — on that day, employers will need to have their workplace violence prevention plan in place. Due to the comprehensive and worksite specific nature of the workplace violence prevention plan requirements, employers should start drafting it well in advance of July 1. If employers haven’t started already, Cal/OSHA’s model workplace violence prevention plan is a great place to start.
James W. Ward, Employment Law Subject Matter Expert/Legal Writer and Editor
CalChamber members can read more about California Workplace Violence Prevention Standards in the HR Library. Not a member? Learn how to power your business with a CalChamber membership
