6.4.24
By Molly Wood, SPHR, MAOL Senior HR Consultant. 
On October 2, 2023, the California legislature published SB 553 which requires employers to include a Workplace Violence Prevention Program (WVPP) as part of their Injury & Illness Prevention Plan (IIPP).
Cal-OSHA has since provided a General Industry template for the WVPP that is, of course, daunting. The plan must include, but is not limited to:
- Identification of the person or persons responsible for implementing the plan
- Effective procedures to get active involvement from employees and authorized employee representatives to develop and implement the plan.
- Methods the employer will use to coordinate implementation of the plan with other employers when needed
- Effective procedures for the employer to accept and respond to acts of workplace violence, and to prohibit retaliation against an employee who makes such a report
- Effective procedures to ensure that employees comply with the plan
- Effective procedures to communicate with employees regarding workplace violence matters, including how to report and incident, how employee concerns will be investigated, and how the results of said investigation will be communicated back to employees
- Effective procedures to respond to actual or potential workplace violence emergencies
- Procedures to develop and provide training to employees
- Procedures to identify, evaluate, and correct workplace violence hazards
- Procedures for post incident response and investigation
- Procedures to review effectiveness of the plan, and make revisions if needed
The bill also requires covered employers to keep a workplace violence log and provide training on an annual basis.
As one would expect from California legislation, there are many bullet points under each of these requirements. SDEA will be conducting a webinar on the requirements and how to develop your WVPP on June 12 from 10:00am – 11:00am. Click here to register.
You may be asking, do even small employers need to comply with this? The answer is, for the most part, yes. BUT, if employee’s are teleworking from a location of the employee’s choice, which is not under the control of the employer OR the place of employment has less than 10 employees working onsite at any given time AND is not accessible to the public, then you are off the hook.
Anybody wishing they hadn’t been so fervent about “return to the office” programs?