Does every California employer need a workplace-violence prevention plan?

This is the broadest new compliance obligation California has placed on ordinary small employers in recent years, and the one most likely to be missing entirely, because it does not arise from anything that happened. It applies whether or not the workplace has ever had an incident.

The plan must be in writing and available to employees, and it has to be specific rather than generic: procedures for accepting and responding to reports of workplace violence, for prohibiting retaliation against the person reporting, for emergency response, for how employees are involved in developing the plan, and for how hazards are identified and corrected.

Training is a separate requirement from the plan. Employees must be trained when the plan is first established and annually after that, in a manner they can understand, covering the plan itself, how to report, and the hazards specific to their work. New hazards require additional training when they arise.

The violent-incident log is the third piece and the one most often absent. Each incident must be recorded with detail about what happened, where, who was involved by type rather than name, the circumstances and the consequences — and the log has to be kept regardless of whether anyone was injured. Records under the section carry their own retention periods, and Cal/OSHA can request them.