California’s Workplace Violence Prevention Law Turns Two, Part 1: Compliance Insights and Emerging Trends

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Karen Tynan: Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the Ogletree Deakins podcast. My name is Karen Tynan, and I’m a shareholder in the Sacramento, California office and co-chair of the Workplace Violence Prevention Practice Group. And here with me today is Robert Rodriguez, my co-chair of our practice group and a fellow shareholder from Sacramento. We’re talking about the 2026 workplace violence prevention landscape in California, building on year one of enforcement under SB 553, and looking ahead to anticipated regulatory updates and enforcement updates. So, Robert, are you ready for the first question?

Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, very excited to be here and really excited to do a recap of the first year, year and a half of what we’re seeing out of the new workplace violence prevention law in California.

Karen Tynan: So, what did we see in 2025 looking back as Cal/OSHA and employers move through really the first full year of workplace violence inspections? For example, tell us about the documents that were demanded. What were the inspector tactics? What did you see in 2025 with regard to workplace violence prevention in California?

Robert Rodriguez: The first thing that comes to mind is not only in workplace violence inspections, but in other just regular run-of-the-mill injury inspections or complaint inspections not involving workplace violence. We’re seeing quite a bit of inspectors requesting the workplace violence prevention plan, requesting the violent incident log, making sure that the employers have those, even though it’s completely unrelated to the reason they’re there. So that’s kind of one thing that really sticks out in my mind. For workplace violence prevention or workplace violence inspections that are either based on an injury or an employee complaint. We are seeing the requests around the plan and the training documents, but a lot of what I’m seeing the inspectors focus on is the hazard assessments, the written hazard assessments. Are you seeing that as well too?

Karen Tynan: Yes. And I like how the first thing you point out is that the inspector might show up because there was a fall, right? A framing contractor had someone fall off of a roof joist, just whatever. And pretty soon in the document request, there’s the box checked for workplace violence prevention plan or training materials or the hazard assessment. And so I think that that’s similar to how when the new heat illness regulations happened, we started seeing those documents requested in every inspection.

Robert Rodriguez: Right, exactly.

Karen Tynan: And so, with that, it calls to the employer’s attention, well, if an inspector comes to our site, let’s say over heat illness or something else, a random inspection and asks for our hazard assessments related to workplace violence, what in the world do we have? What do we have? What would our employees say in an interview? So, I fully agree with you about the focus on the hazard assessment, and I don’t see it changing in 2026 onward. Do you?

Robert Rodriguez: Definitely not. I think they’re going to be even more focused on that because it is fairly straightforward to whip up a workplace violence prevention plan. I think where the real work comes in is doing the hazard assessments. What does your physical space look like? What are your risks? And so that’s really where Cal/OSHA is kind of pulling back the layers of the onion to make sure that employers have met their obligations to do that under the new workplace violence law. And even in employee interviews, I’ve seen inspectors asking employees and management level folks about the workplace violence plan, whether or not they were involved in hazard assessments, what they know about that. So, this is definitely something that’s on their list of facts to find out during these investigations.

Karen Tynan: And it seems to me that 2026 and onward, workplace violence, inspections, investigations are a top priority continuing. You agree with that forecast?

Robert Rodriguez: A hundred percent. Yes.

Karen Tynan: Okay. Now from the inspections that we had in 2025 and back to 2024, what kind of best practices have you seen from California employers, whether it involves the training cadence, documentation, investigations, or even corrective actions? What are you seeing employers do really well that we could share that people could learn from?

Robert Rodriguez: Yeah. From my experience in the numerous workplace violence inspections that I’ve had over the last year or so, some of the best practices that I’ve seen that have benefited the employers in these inspections is the training. That’s really the centerpiece of any really good safety program, whether that be workplace violence or lockout/tagout is where the rubber meets the road, are your employees being trained? And we want to make sure that number one, we’re doing that for health and safety reasons, number two, for compliance purposes, but also for employee wellbeing. Some of the inspections that I’ve been on, I have seen some employee frustrations saying, “I don’t really know where to report it to. I don’t really know what is the actual definition of workplace violence. What does workplace violence look like?”

So, the more prepared employers I’ve seen are teaching these things that are required by the regulation that you define what workplace violence is. You have a method for where that could be reported, how it’s going to be investigated, and making sure you’re dropping that down to your employee population so they feel supported and know what they need to do in case of workplace violence.

Karen Tynan: I think those are great points. And the only thing I would add to that is when employees are asked about the workplace violence prevention plan, I like to hear employees able to pair it and explain details of the plan. Not just say definitions, but if an employee works in a retail space, the plan should be customized. So, we want those employees to understand the nuances of violence and threats they’d face in a retail environment compared to another business or manufacturing. So, I like all those learning points for California employers for sure.

Robert Rodriguez: And just one more point on that that you bring up I want to piggyback on is I have seen a lot of vendors and gotten a lot of questions about training vendors and whether or not we can use a one size fits all. And just because different work sites and employers have different risks, like you mentioned retail, they have a risk for not only employee on employee violence, but they also have a risk from customer on employee violence. So, their level of training is going to be a little bit different than say a white-collar office setting. So, making sure you have that customized training where you recognize the unique risks that your business has as a result of its operations.

Karen Tynan: Well, that’s a great intro to the next question I wanted to ask you about FAQs. What have been our frequently asked questions in 2025 that can help employers have better plans and better work environment, better training in 2026? So, with the frequently asked questions that we get, what do you think is worthwhile sharing in this podcast that can help employers?

Robert Rodriguez: Well, first, I’d like to start with not a frequently asked question, but just kind of, I think the funniest one I got. There is a provision in the new law about animal attack and whether or not that qualifies as workplace violence. There’s been a lot of uncertainty about what this actually means. When it was promulgated, we weren’t really sure did they mean anytime a delivery driver gets bit by a dog, is that an animal attack? Is it where you’ve got a killer parrot and that’s an animal attack? And so, Karen and I actually had a call from one of our great clients where somebody was out in the field in the construction industry and they were unfortunately attacked by an emu.

Karen Tynan: Not an ostrich, but an emu?

Robert Rodriguez: Not an ostrich, but an emu. And evidently it was actually a pretty vicious attack where the guy was hurt and not too terribly hurt, but still he had suffered some injuries. And so we had to kind of dig down and think, is this an animal attack? He was attacked by an emu. Do you remember what the result of that was?

Karen Tynan: After much discussion, you opined that because this person had gone into a field to perform tasks related to the customer who owned the emu and it wasn’t intentional. For example, the property owner didn’t sic the emu on the worker that it was not an animal attack. There wasn’t intentionality. Can you take us through that thought process?

Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, exactly. No, you’re spot on. And that’s what it was, is under the current Cal/OSHA guidance, which they put out not too long ago, the animal attack has their interpreting it means where you’re using an animal as a weapon. So, you have potentially an attack dog and you sic them on somebody. So, this was just a normal everyday wild emu attack that doesn’t qualify for that. So that was kind of the funniest interesting question I’ve gotten.

Most of the frequently asked questions are around training, what we need to do, whether or not it’s just once a year, how does that work and do we need to update the plan, update the training? And so, the nuts and bolts are pretty simple. You do have to do your training once a year. You do have to train folks that are onboarded within a reasonable amount of time. And then one thing that I think employers may have missed in all of this is there could potentially be a obligation to retrain after an incident.

Karen Tynan: That’s critical to understand.

Robert Rodriguez: Yeah.

Karen Tynan: And that was one of my top questions in 2025 was, okay, we did onboarding training, we’ve done some initial training, but now we’ve added some engineering controls, some fobbing to doors, things like that because we had an incident or for whatever reason, we evaluated a security hazard. And so yeah, you’d need to then retrain folks to utilize the engineering control and remind people of how these engineering controls are to be used for the protections in the workplace. So, I do think training has been a top question, and we’ve talked about it in other podcasts. A top question that we got at the very beginning of when SV553 came into being was, “Well, can I buy this off the shelf training for 999 an employee?” And for those listening to the podcast, if you could see Robert, he kind of gave, I would call it a combination of a smirk, an eye roll, and a smile.

So, Robert, when you get that question of, “Hey, this ABC training service will let us go online and use their generic workplace violence training for 999 an employee. It’s a great deal. Can I do it?” How do you respond?

Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, I’m usually very skeptical of that just because it’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all training because of the requirement to have customized workplace violence plans and training that are customized to your risks and your unique circumstances. I have to say that there has been a couple of vendors I’ve seen that will have kind of the generalized workplace violence, the definitions, things of that, and then they have an area of where the employers can give them information about their custom sites and they do a custom training, but I can tell you it’s not 999 an employee for that.

Karen Tynan: For sure. So, we learned from this that a top question is training and that is likely an area for employers to focus on. Now, as 2025 was completed, there have been some drafts, I think we’re in the second or third evolution, for the changes to the workplace violence prevention regulations. SB 553 and the labor code is still in effect and enforceable until Cal/OSHA adopts the next version, I’d call it workplace violence 2.0 regs. That draft is happening likely votes summer 2026, but looking forward, as you’ve looked at these drafts and maybe some anticipated updates to the regulations, do you see those possible changes as being impactful? Are they minimal? What are you thinking about that for the 2026 landscape here in California?

Robert Rodriguez: So, the changes that I’m seeing that are going to impact the employers most are not really about the actual written plan. There’s not so much that’s different about the written plan, but the steps behind the written plan, I think, are going to be heavily impacted in terms of engineering controls and administrative controls. So, in this newest form of the draft regulation, there’s quite a few engineering controls that are laid out as examples of what an employer may want to consider. I’m fearful for employers that Cal/OSHA may look at these as a list of must haves. Some of them are like shatterproof glass, panic buttons, spaces configured to be able to have employees hiding. So, you’re talking about renovations, remodeling. These are costly things for an employer. There’s also proposals about having provisions of security personnel, which I think for the right risks makes sense, but for some employers, it may not make any sense to have a security guard on the premises.

So, I think the engineering controls and the administrative controls that are laid out in the new draft regulation are the most impactful for employers that worry me about making it more burdensome for employers.

Karen Tynan: I fully agree with that because if you look at how the labor code is written out with SB 553, there’s pretty much flexibility. The employer is supposed to evaluate their workplace and implement engineering controls and administrative controls to address the hazards and utilize PPE too, right?

Robert Rodriguez: Right.

Karen Tynan: The traditional hierarchy of controls. But now this version that could be in effect, maybe late 2026, it has so much specificity, my worry is it takes away flexibility because of the specificity.

Robert Rodriguez: I think that’s a great point. It’s difficult because it’s, again, not a one size fits all. It shouldn’t be. It should be customized to what your work site needs. And the new regulation in this draft form at least really doesn’t take a lot of…or takes a lot of the flexibility and reasonableness, I think, out of what the existing law is.

Karen Tynan: Yes. And I think you and I can commit that we always keep track of all these draft regulations. We write blog posts and do webinars on it. So, we’re going to be monitoring the draft regulation for general industry workplace violence very carefully.

So, I want to finish out with this question. So, we’ve talked about what we’ve kind of learned in 2025, our FAQs, some best practices. Are there ways that employers can adjust their workplace violence prevention plans maybe in training or any other aspect, maybe their investigations, their logs, confidentiality? Are there some action items now that employers could maybe take an opportunity to make adjustments in 2026?

Robert Rodriguez: Yeah. And I hate to come back to something that I’ve already discussed, but I would say, again, hazard assessments. That’s going to be one area I think employers can get ahead of this where, or one of those examples of engineering controls won’t be feasible for your industry or just don’t make sense. The hazard assessments are going to be key for that. You’re going to make sure that you’ve done your hazard assessments and that you have identified what security measures we think we need, what we don’t need, and why we don’t need them. And I think that’s one way employers can get ahead of this regulation.

Karen Tynan: And I’d like to add too, since this law has been in effect now, year and a half, coming up on two years, I think it’s an opportunity in 2026 for employers to step back and say, “What’s worked well? Where can we improve? Have our investigations worked well? Are our investigations happening under HR? Are risk managers doing this work? How is our confidentiality in the investigation, maybe in the violent incident log? How’s our confidentiality processes? How are they working? Are we maintaining confidentiality? Are we protecting the privacy of employees?” So I think it’s a good time to check in and look for those opportunities, those deltas where you can make some fine improvements versus simply having the plan, having it in place and viewing it as a more static or stagnant plan, taking the time to say, “Are there minute adjustments, one or 2% here or there that could really give us a return and protect employees?”

Robert Rodriguez: That’s a great recommendation and a great way to close out the podcast.

Karen Tynan: Well, everybody, thanks for listening to Karen and Robert. Look for our blog articles on ogletree.com. Check out our practice page, the Workplace Violence Prevention Practice Group on that same website and also all of our webinars. Stay safe out there.

Robert Rodriguez: Thank you so much, Karen.

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