CA Annual Workplace Violence Prevention Requirements

Do you know what California requires of employers each and every year when it comes to your workplace violence prevention plan?

Every year, California requires employers to do some assessment and some training as well as implementation based upon how things went the prior year.

So in this piece, we're going to talk about what California requires you to do each and every year in order to make sure that you have an effective workplace violence prevention program.

I spent 30 years investigating violence. How its cause and how it can be prevented.

And if you would like some help with your workplace violence prevention program, whether that's conducting assessments, whether that's implementation, whether that's training, or just making sure you keep up with your annual requirements, just click on the link and schedule your free consultation.

And together we'll discuss where you're at and what things that you need to do.

Two Categories of Requirements

So there are two main things that California requires employers to do every year.

One of those involves determining whether your workplace violence prevention program is as effective as it should be, and what areas based upon that, needs to be changed, what newly discovered safety hazards need to be addressed, how those different safety hazards your employees are impacted by, and how they can be addressed so that they're no longer at risk from them.

And the 2nd area that California requires employers to do is to provide quite a lot of training each and every year.

This is not a one and done process.

Rather, this is something where you're going back, looking at what you did, looking at ways that you can do them better, and then training your employees in each of those different areas.

Requirement to Assess Effectiveness of Your Workplace Violence Prevention Plan

First, let's talk about your requirements to assess the effectiveness of your workplace violence prevention program.

Now, the best way to do that is by interviewing your employees. Go through with them the practices that you implemented in the first place.

And look at whether they are still relevant to addressing the potential safety hazards that your employees are facing.

Do your employees feel like they have the tools necessary in order to keep them safe while they're working for you.

Look at your practices that you've implemented, what can be done differently, that would improve their safety, or are you meeting all of the checkpoints that you need to in order ensure that your employees are safer.

And then finally, implementing those practices.

Yearly Required Trainings

In addition to that, you're going to need to conduct trainings.

Employee involvement in all facets of your workplace violence prevention plan is mandated under California's law.

We've already discussed making sure that you interview employees to do your initial assessment of your current program to assess how it's going.

You'll also use any previous violence incidents that are documented in your violent incident log.

But many of you are not going to have any incidents in your violent incident log. So you have to do the interviews with the employees to get that information.

When it comes to training, always start with training the employees on your workplace violence prevention plan.

You may have some new employees potentially from turnover.

Your existing employees may have forgotten everything that's in the plan, that's, you know, human beings, do that, and unless we're continuously doing reminders and updates and things like that and notifications, a lot of what they learned a year ago is out the window.

So we need to make sure that they're brought back up to speed on your workplace violence prevention plan.

And what's involved in that.

Now, as part of that, you need to make sure that you train them in the definitions of what constitutes workplace violence, and retaliation.  You have to make sure that they understand exactly what threats and violence they're facing, and that they should report those. 

Because that's how you keep them safer.

So part of this means that they need to be confident that retaliation for doing so is prohibited by your workplace violence prevention plan.

Now, here's a really interesting thing about retaliation.

Most employers would deny ever retaliating against an employee for bringing forward a safety concern.

But here's where retaliation has been a real problem according to Cal OSHA.

And that is when employees engage in acts of self-defense or in defense of others, employers, perhaps they're worried about getting sued by the person who is defended against, they are punishing their employees for doing that.

Maybe they worry about their worker's comp, maybe they worry about general liability.

But here's the thing.

California law permits people to act in defense of themselves and in defense of others when there is a perceived threat to their safety.

As long as the response is proportional.

So employers cannot restrict conduct restriction that is lawful under California law.

So make sure that your employees understand that if it comes to a safety threat and if they feel they need to act in self-defense or in defense of someone else, to just go ahead and do it, and that they're not going to be punished for doing so.

You're also required to do some training on how employees report concerns that they have about their safety. Training should include:

Do you have a formal complaint process?

Are there specific people at your company that you should have the employees report these to or that that employees are supposed to report any concerns to safety?

They also need to be trained that if need be, they should report safety concerns directly to law enforcement.

You should also have a process in place to address conflicts of interest if the safety concern comes from an immediate supervisor.

Who else can they go to?

You must always have a fallback in place to make sure that retaliation isn't part of the process. It's highly problematic if a supervisor is engaged in an incident and the employee has to report safety concerns to somebody who is directly involved in the safety issue.

And in addition to that, it's not enough just to prohibit retaliation, but you need to train your employees in what steps you are taking as an employer to prevent retaliation.

So it's not just saying, thou shall not retaliate, it's what specific steps you, as an employer, are doing, to prevent retaliation.

Next, you need to train your employees yearly in the safety hazards they face, in the practices that you've implemented to help lessen the risk from those safety hazards, and any new safety hazards that has been uncovered or you learned about since you implemented your workplace violence prevention program.

And any new safety hazards since you trained your employees in the previous year.

You have to rain them in those safety hazards, and what steps they can take to reduce the risk from those safety hazards.

And how to address any new safety hazards that crop up.

Next, you need to talk about how employees can seek assistance if there's a violence situation going on in real time.

For example, if there is an actual physical attack, who can they notify to help them deal with the current attack. This is not just about who to report to later, but who can they report to in order to get help right now if there's a physical attack or someone who's engaged in threatening behavior, because the employee facing the violence there's safety in numbers that can prevent the attack or at least lessen the harm from it.

Each year you have to train your employees in who to contact, and in what types of situations to notify someone else.

So if you can do it beforehand, or if an attack takes place, you want to try to nip that in the bud as quickly as possible.

One of the most critical annual requirements under California's workplace violence prevention law is to train your employees every year in the strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence.

Now, those strategies should be based upon the 4 source types of workplace violence.

Number one is from the general public who's there to commit a crime.

It could be robbery, sexual assault, or an attack in a parking lot. Anytime a member of the public comes to your workplace in order to commit a crime and violence occurs, that's source type number one.

Source type number two, which is the most common source type, is violence from clients, customers, patients, and vendors. Those that you do business with, or serve, as part of your organization..

If you're in the medical field and you are a nurse and you're doing an intake on someone, and that person commits violence, that's a type 2 source.

If you're an attorney and your own client attacks you, that is a type 2 source of workplace violence.

Source type 2 is the most common source for workplace violence. 

Source type 3 is coworker or former coworker violence. And that doesn't really need much explanation.

It's how the media typically depicts workplace violence. We're all familiar with that. It's the old going postal.

And source type four, which is the most misunderstood aspect of workplace violence is someone that's personally connected to your employee who does not work at your workplace, but who comes to the workplace and engages in threats or an act of violence with your employee at your location.

The most common one of those source types is domestic violence, but it can also be neighbors, it can be family members, it can be friends, and a lot of times it's driven by money.

They know where your employee works. They know what your employees shift is like. They even know what car your employee drives, so they can literally wait for your employee to come out to that location.

And it doesn't have to be intentional violence. It can start as an argument that then spirals.

So your employees need to be trained in strategies to avoid physical harm from all 4 source types of workplace violence, and keep in mind that California prohibits you from preventing employees from engaging in self-defense or in defense of others.

So in some respects, it may make sense for you to actually train them, at least minimally in how to protect themselves and others should violence occur.

California requires annual trainings in the violent incident log.

Your violent incident log is where you would document all of the details surrounding any workplace violence or near misses of workplace violence or threats threatening conduct that happens to your employees.

You need train employees in the violin incident log, including all of the information that goes into the log, they need to also understand that their personal privacy and any health related matters will be confidential and protected from disclosure. And above all, they need to know who's responsible for making sure that the information is documented and that it's documented correctly.

You must also include a yearly question and answer session for your employees with someone who is well versed in the workplace violence prevention plan, and any types of trainings and program implementation that you do.

Employees need to have a resource that they can pepper with questions just to make sure they're 100% clear on how your workplace violence prevention plan works and how it will keep them safe.

And finally, you need to train your employees on any new sources of workplace violence, and any new safety hazards that have been identified since you provided the last training.

A really important way to do that is through interviewing your employees.

We talked about that in the assessment section.

But that's really how you're going to find out if there are any new safety hazards unless an attack occurs, and then you're assessing how that attack occurred and looking for any new types of things.

Once you've trained them in these new types of workplace violence, then you need to train them and steps they can take to reduce the safety hazard from that new source type.

All of those types of trainings need to be done each and every year.

If you'd like some help with training your employees in workplace violence, in helping assess and identify employment practices that can be done to lessen the risk of violence, or if you would like help in training your employees, in strategies to avoid physical harm.

Click on the link to set up your free consultation where we'll talk about the specifics of your workplace violence prevention plan, where you are in your implementation of that, where you are in your annual training, and what areas you feel you still have concerns about that need to be addressed.