California Enacts Law Requiring Workplace Violence Prevention Plan

Effective July 1, 2024

On September 30, 2023, California enacted a law requiring all employers to establish, implement, and maintain an effective written Workplace Violence Prevention Plan (“Plan”) in all work areas. You can incorporate the Plan into your existing Injury and Illness Prevention Plan or maintain it as a standalone document. The requirements regarding the creation and implementation of the Plan become effective and enforceable on July 1, 2024.

Employers must record information in a violent incident log for every workplace violence incident as defined, as well as provide employees with effective training on the employer’s Plan. They are also required to offer additional training when new or previously unrecognized workplace violence hazards are identified or when changes are made to the Plan.

Additional records that must be created and maintained include training records, violent incident logs, and workplace incident investigation records. Certain records required under this law must be made available to Cal-OSHA (“the Division”), the employer’s employees, and employee representatives.

Effective January 1, 2025, this law expands the current law’s provision allowing an employer to seek a temporary restraining order (TRO) on behalf of an employee who has suffered unlawful violence that did, or may reasonably be believed could, occur in the workplace.

Violations of the law could result in a citation issued by the Division and a notice of civil penalty. If this happens, you will be provided with a method to appeal the citation and civil penalty.

What do I need to do?

Under these requirements, employers must:

Establish a Workplace Violence Prevention Plan, detailed and customized for your workplace.
- Review Cal-OSHA’s Model Written Workplace Violence Prevention Plan and use as a foundation for crafting your customized plan.
Provide employees with Workplace Violence Prevention Training on or before the effective date of the law, and annually thereafter.
- Provide training to employees whenever a new workplace violence hazard is identified and whenever the Plan is updated.
Include in the training:
- A process for employees to report workplace violence incidents.
- A procedure for responding to employee reports of workplace violence incidents.
- A discussion about job-specific violence hazards and preventive measures.
  - Encourage interactive discussions and discuss Plan contents to increase employee knowledge and comfort.
- An explanation of the incident log, its purpose, and the importance of recordkeeping.
- Notification of the prohibition of retaliation against employees who report incidents of workplace violence.
Maintain a Violence Incident Log.
- Maintain a log of all incidents of workplace violence, even if the incident did not result in injury.
- Document incident details and other required information.

Familiarize yourself with this new law by reviewing Cal-OSHA’s Workplace Violence FAQ.

How can G&A help?

G&A Partners has provided you with a Workplace Violence Prevention Plan and training sample templates to guide and assist you in the development of your customized Plan. Please note that these templates will need to be customized to fit your operations accordingly. Also, G&A will not be able to conduct any of the training or customize WVPP plans.

Please review the resources below.

Cal-OSHA’s Model Written Workplace Violence Prevention Plan [Download]

Sample Workplace Violence Prevention Training documents:

Have Questions or Concerns?

Please contact your on-demand G&A support team, AccessHR, at 1-866-497-4222, or Richard Gentry, our California-based safety consultant, at rgentry@gnapartners.com or 1-949-892-1569.