Confused by California's Workplace Violence Prevention Requirements?
Are you confused by California’s workplace violence prevention requirements that went into effect on July 1, 2024?
If so, you’re not alone. In fact, a whole lot of employers don’t even know that there are requirements.
I guess you could say that California shot itself in the foot, with its roll out, or more to the point, the lack thereof, especially when it came to educating business owners and the public about its requirements.
And that’s a real problem.
Getting workplace violence prevention wrong not only jeopardizes the safety of employees, and business owners, but it also puts your business’s bottom line at risk too.
Regardless of how California handled the roll out and education process around its requirements, your business cannot afford workplace violence. Even just one incident can cause:
- Higher turnover and absenteeism rates that lead to higher employment costs and lower productivity.
- Increased medical costs and legal fees.
- Higher insurance premiums
- Reduced sales and revenue for up to 6 months.
Can your business afford that?
That’s why I’m running my Protect Your Employees and Your Bottom Line with an Effective Workplace Violence Prevention workshop on November 4th because I want you to get your workplace violence prevention right.
Maybe you’re thinking why worry about it? It’s unlikely that your business will be impacted by workplace violence. So why spend time and money on something that’s unlikely to occur?
Well for starters, a survey of small and midsized businesses by Zogby Analytics found that 1/3 of the respondents’ workplace had a serious act of violence or threat of act of violence in their workplace. And further, 34% of employees surveyed reported feeling threatened by customers, co-workers, visitors, or the public.
Let me put this another way. A baseball player who bats .333 is exceptional. (Getting a hit 1 out of every 3 at bats). And a great player bats .300 (getting 3 hits per every 10 at bats).
So a 1 in 3 chance of having a significant workplace violence incident is something you just can’t ignore.
Now. You could buy a boiler plate computer program about workplace violence and show it to your employees. Just like a lot of employers do with sexual harassment training.
But, that won’t fly under California’s requirements. Your entire workplace violence prevention program must be based upon determining the specific hazards that your employees face and developing a way to address those specific safety hazards, and then to train your employees in those approaches.
It’s the word specific that matters here. Any workplace violence program must be built around the specific situations your employees face.
By the way, the minimum workplace violence fine is around $15,000 and that’s just for not having the right paperwork.
A fine for not properly investigating workplace violence incidents, or implementing the required trainings, can run more than double that figure, for just one incident. Repeated incidents can lead to fines of up to $155,000.
Free resource for CA employers
If you have employees in California and want to quickly check your exposure under the state’s workplace violence requirements, I offer a free 15ā€‘minute CA Workplace Violence Compliance Risk Audit. In one short call, you’ll get a quick-read risk snapshot and your top 3 compliance gaps.
Get your free CA compliance risk audit →
