California Workplace Violence Prevention Plan Template

California’s model workplace violence prevention plan template is published free by Cal/OSHA as a downloadable Word document, and you can get it directly from the Division of Occupational Safety and Health website.¹ It covers every element Labor Code Section 6401.9 requires and uses red bracketed text to mark the fields you need to fill in with details specific to your workplace. The template is also linked from Cal/OSHA’s general workplace violence prevention page for non-healthcare employers.² Downloading it is the easy part. The template gives you the required framework; it does not, on its own, make you compliant.

Do You Actually Need a Plan

Since July 1, 2024, nearly every California employer has been required to maintain a written workplace violence prevention plan, including for employer-provided housing.³ A few operations are carved out:

Healthcare facilities already covered by Cal/OSHA’s healthcare workplace violence standard at Title 8, Section 3342.
Employees teleworking from a location of their choosing that the employer does not control.
Worksites with fewer than ten employees working at any given time that are not accessible to the public, so long as the employer complies with Cal/OSHA’s Injury and Illness Prevention Program regulation.
Law enforcement agencies and facilities operated by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

If none of those fit, you need a plan regardless of industry, headcount, or whether you’ve ever had an incident.

What You Have to Customize Before the Template Counts

The statute requires the plan to be in effect at all times and in all work areas, and to be specific to the hazards and corrective measures for each work area and operation.³ A single generic document stretched across very different worksites without site-specific details won’t pass. Every bracketed field in the Cal/OSHA template corresponds to one of the required elements below, and each one needs real answers tied to your actual operation.

Responsible Persons and Employee Involvement

Name the people (or job titles) who have authority and responsibility for implementing the plan. Then describe the specific methods you use to involve employees and their representatives in developing, implementing, and reviewing it.² Document how you solicit feedback on hazards, how you handle reports, and how you tell workers what changed as a result. The plan also has to spell out that employees can report concerns without retaliation.

Reporting Procedures

Explain exactly how workers report violent incidents, threats, or safety concerns, how those reports are investigated, and how employees are informed of the results and any corrective actions.³ “Tell your manager” is not enough. A dedicated phone line, an online form, or a named safety coordinator gives workers something concrete to use.

Hazard Identification, Evaluation, and Correction

Lay out how you identify and evaluate conditions that could contribute to workplace violence. Inspections are required when the plan is first established, after every workplace violence incident, and whenever you become aware of a new or previously unrecognized hazard.³ Think about lighting in parking areas, unsecured entry points, isolated work areas, and staffing levels during high-risk hours.

When an inspection surfaces a hazard, the plan must describe how it gets corrected, who’s responsible, the timeline, and how you verify the fix worked. If a hazard can’t be resolved immediately, document the interim steps protecting workers in the meantime. Cal/OSHA inspectors look closely here, because a plan that identifies problems but never closes them out is really just a catalog of known dangers.

Emergency Response

Your plan must include procedures for responding to actual or potential workplace violence emergencies, and the statute names three specific pieces:³

An effective way to alert employees to the presence, location, and nature of a workplace violence emergency.
Evacuation or sheltering plans appropriate and feasible for the worksite. A warehouse and a retail store need different plans.
Clear instructions for reaching assigned responders, security personnel, and law enforcement.

If your plan says “call 911” but doesn’t address how to alert other employees in a building with no PA system, you have a gap that matters.

Post-Incident Response

Describe how the employer investigates incidents and what changes result. The plan must be reviewed after every workplace violence incident, on top of the annual review.³ Investigation records must be kept for at least five years and cannot contain medical information as defined under California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act. Document the facts of the incident, the hazard assessment, and what you changed; keep medical details about injured employees in a separate, restricted file.

The Violent Incident Log

Every workplace violence incident has to be recorded in a violent incident log, and the required fields are more detailed than most employers expect:³

Date, time, and location.
Workplace violence type (Type 1 through Type 4).
A detailed description of what happened.
Perpetrator classification: client, customer, stranger, coworker, supervisor, family member, or other.
Circumstances at the time, such as low staffing, isolated area, poor lighting, or working alone.
Location classification: workplace, parking lot, or other area.
Type of incident: physical attack with or without a weapon, threat of force, sexual assault or threat, animal attack, or other.
Consequences of the incident.

Personal identifying information such as names or Social Security numbers must not appear in the log.

The Four Types of Workplace Violence

Your log has to note which category each incident falls into:³

Type 1: Violence by someone with no legitimate business at the worksite, such as a person entering to commit a crime.
Type 2: Violence directed at employees by customers, clients, patients, students, inmates, or visitors.
Type 3: Violence by a current or former employee, supervisor, or manager against another employee.
Type 4: Violence by someone with a personal relationship with an employee but no employment connection to the worksite.

These categories drive prevention strategy. A retail store managing mostly Type 1 risks needs different controls than a social services agency where Type 2 is the primary concern.

Training, Review, and Recordkeeping

Employees must receive initial training when the plan is first established, annually after that, and whenever a new hazard is identified. Six topics are required:³

The employer’s plan, how to get a free copy, and how to participate in its development and implementation.
The definitions and requirements of Section 6401.9.
How to report incidents or concerns to the employer or law enforcement without fear of retaliation.
Workplace violence hazards specific to employees’ jobs, the corrective measures in place, how to seek assistance, and strategies to avoid physical harm.
The violent incident log and how to get copies of required records.
An opportunity for interactive questions and answers with a person knowledgeable about the plan.

That last point trips up a lot of employers. A pamphlet, an email, or a pre-recorded video with no Q&A doesn’t satisfy the requirement. The training must include a live or real-time interactive component where employees can ask questions of someone who actually knows the plan.

How Long You Keep Each Record

Retention periods vary by record type:³

Hazard identification, evaluation, and correction records: at least five years.
Violent incident logs: at least five years.
Investigation records: at least five years, with no medical information.
Training records: at least one year, including training date, content summary, trainer names and qualifications, and names and job titles of attendees.

Separately, Labor Code Section 1198.5, as amended by SB 513 effective January 1, 2026, requires employers who maintain education or training records to include additional details in employee personnel files, including the training provider name, duration, core competencies covered, and any resulting certification.⁴

All of these records must go to Cal/OSHA on request. Employees and their representatives can also request copies of hazard records, training records, and incident logs, and the employer has 15 calendar days to provide them at no cost. The plan itself must be available and easily accessible to employees, their representatives, and Cal/OSHA at all times, whether that means an intranet page, a shared drive, or a binder in the break room.

Reviewing the Plan

Review the plan at least once a year, whenever a deficiency becomes apparent, and after every workplace violence incident.³ The review must actively involve employees and their representatives. Look at the incident log for patterns: Are incidents clustering around certain shifts, locations, or job duties? Did a corrective measure actually reduce the hazard, or just move it? Document when the review happened, who participated, and what changed.

What a Missing or Inadequate Plan Costs

Cal/OSHA enforces the written plan requirement through inspections, citations, and civil penalties. The 2025 penalty amounts depend on classification:⁵

Serious violation: up to $25,000 per violation, with an initial base penalty of $18,000.
General or regulatory violation: up to $16,285 per violation.
Willful violation: at least $11,632 and up to $162,851.
Repeat violation: base penalty doubled for a first repeat, quadrupled for a second, and multiplied by ten for a third, up to a maximum of $162,851.
Failure to abate: up to $15,000 per day past the deadline for fixing the violation.

A missing or inadequate plan can be cited as a serious violation if Cal/OSHA determines the deficiency creates a realistic possibility of death or serious harm.⁶ Having no plan at all when you’re required to have one is the kind of straightforward violation that’s hard to defend. Downloading the Cal/OSHA template, filling in every bracketed field with your actual worksite details, training your people, and keeping the log current is what moves you from “has a document” to “complies with Section 6401.9.”

1
Cal/OSHA. Cal/OSHA Model Workplace Violence Prevention Plan for General Industry
2
Cal/OSHA. Cal/OSHA Workplace Violence Prevention for General Industry (Non-Health Care Settings)
3
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code LAB 6401.9
4
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code LAB 1198.5
5
Cal/OSHA. Cal/OSHA Increases Civil Penalty Amounts for 2025
6
Cal/OSHA. Title 8, Section 336 – Assessment of Civil Penalties