California Revises Draft Workplace Violence Prevention Rules: What Employers Should Watch Now

California employers already had a major workplace violence prevention lift when SB 553 took effect on July 1, 2024. That law required most California employers to create, implement, and maintain a written workplace violence prevention plan, train employees, keep required records, and maintain a violent incident log.

Now Cal/OSHA is moving closer to a formal general industry regulation that would build on those statutory requirements. On April 23, 2026, Cal/OSHA released another revised draft of its proposed Workplace Violence Prevention in General Industry standard. The public comment period for this draft runs through June 1, 2026, and a final version is expected to follow through the formal rulemaking process.

Translation for employers: your current plan may not be “one and done.” California is still refining the rules, and the newest draft gives us a strong preview of where compliance expectations are headed.

Quick Refresher: What SB 553 Already Requires

California Labor Code section 6401.9 requires covered employers to maintain a workplace violence prevention plan that includes procedures for employee involvement, hazard identification and correction, incident response, training, recordkeeping, and review. The law already applies broadly to most California employers, with limited exceptions.

Employers must also review the effectiveness of their workplace violence prevention plan at least annually, after a workplace violence incident, and whenever a deficiency becomes apparent. For many employers that rolled out plans around the July 1, 2024 effective date, annual review and retraining cycles are coming back around.

So while the draft regulation is not final yet, current compliance obligations are very real.

What Changed in the Latest Draft?

The April 2026 draft does not simply restate SB 553. It adds more detail and, in some areas, expands how employers may need to think about workplace violence prevention.

Littler identifies several key differences in the newest draft, including expanded coverage for employer-provided transportation, changes to small-employer exemptions, revised definitions, more detailed hazard-assessment examples, and clarification that employers are not responsible for employee texts or personal social media activity they are not reasonably aware of.

That last point matters because workplace violence concerns can increasingly arise from online conduct, texts, or social media posts. The draft appears to recognize that employers cannot manage what they do not know about, but once an issue is brought to the employer’s attention, the employer may need to assess the risk and respond appropriately.

In other words, “we didn’t know” may be a defense only when the employer truly did not know and reasonably could not have known.

1. Employer-Provided Transportation May Be Covered

One of the most practical changes is the proposed expansion to employer-provided transportation. The revised draft expressly includes employer-provided transportation within the scope of the standard.

This could matter for employers that provide shuttles, vans, buses, company vehicles, transportation between worksites, or other employer-arranged travel. If employees are exposed to workplace violence hazards during transportation arranged or controlled by the employer, those risks may need to be considered in the workplace violence prevention program.

Employers should review whether their current plans address:

Employee transportation between worksites
Company shuttles or vans
Travel to remote job locations
Parking lot pickup/drop-off points
Driver safety and passenger conduct
Late-night or early-morning transportation risks
Emergency communication during transit

This is especially important for industries with mobile workers, field staff, hospitality workers, agricultural operations, security concerns, or employees traveling to customer locations.

2. The Small Employer Exemption May Narrow

The revised draft also limits the exemption for certain non-public workplaces to employers with fewer than 10 employees at the place of employment at all times during the preceding 365 days.

That phrase matters. An employer may not be able to rely on a temporary dip in headcount to claim an exemption. Instead, the employer would need to look at staffing levels over the prior year.

For small employers, this is a good time to review coverage carefully. If your California workplace sometimes has 10 or more employees, uses seasonal staff, or fluctuates throughout the year, do not assume the exemption applies.

When in doubt, it may be safer to maintain the plan. In California compliance, “we thought we were exempt” is usually not the winning line. Cute try, though.

3. Key Definitions Are Being Revised

The draft revises several definitions, including Authorized Employee Representative, Designated Representative, and Threat of Violence. Littler notes that these changes appear designed to align with existing Cal/OSHA definitions and broaden the range of conduct that may need to be reported, assessed, or addressed.

For employers, definitions are not just legal housekeeping. They control how your policy works in practice.

If a definition expands who can participate in workplace violence prevention activities, who may access records, or what counts as a threat, HR and safety teams need to understand those changes before updating forms, investigation procedures, and training materials.

Employers should be prepared to revise their workplace violence prevention plans once the regulation is finalized so that the plan language matches the final Cal/OSHA definitions.

4. Hazard Assessment Expectations Are Getting More Detailed

The revised draft updates examples of workplace violence hazards employers should consider when conducting hazard assessments. These include factors such as working alone, poor lighting, blocked visibility, unauthorized access points, lack of escape routes, exchange of money or valuables, public contact, late-night work, inadequate staffing, lack of security staffing, selling or providing alcohol, marijuana, or pharmaceutical drugs, and workplace-connected stalking when the employer is aware of it or reasonably should be aware of it.

This is a major practical takeaway.

Employers should not treat a workplace violence prevention plan as a generic document sitting in a compliance binder. The plan should reflect the actual workplace.

A retail location open late at night has different risks than an office suite. A cannabis dispensary has different risks than a warehouse. A field technician entering private homes has different risks than a remote administrative employee. A healthcare-adjacent operation may have different public-contact issues than a manufacturing site.

The revised draft reinforces that hazard assessment needs to be specific, thoughtful, and documented.

5. Trauma Counseling Requirements Are Being Refined

One closely watched issue has been whether the regulation would require trauma counseling after workplace violence incidents.

Seyfarth notes that the revised draft clarifies employers may satisfy the counseling obligation if counseling is available through workers’ compensation, employee assistance programs, or initial services offered by the employer. The draft also indicates employers are not responsible for diagnosis or treatment.

This is helpful, but it does not eliminate the need for a clear post-incident response process.

Employers should know in advance:

Who evaluates whether an incident triggers post-incident support
How employees are notified of available resources
Whether the EAP is adequate and accessible
How workers’ compensation will be coordinated
Who documents the response
How confidentiality will be maintained

After an incident is not the time to go hunting through vendor contracts to figure out whether trauma support exists. That is a recipe for operational chaos with a side of legal exposure.

6. Reporting Channels Need to Account for Employee-on-Employee Incidents

The revised draft includes refinements affecting how employees report concerns. Seyfarth notes that employers must ensure employees can report concerns to someone other than a supervisor who may be involved in the incident, especially in employee-on-employee situations.

This is an important HR and safety crossover issue.

If your workplace violence prevention plan says employees should report concerns to their supervisor, that may not be enough. What happens when the supervisor is the alleged aggressor? What if the employee fears retaliation? What if the concern involves a manager, lead, or owner?

Employers should provide multiple reporting paths, such as HR, safety, a hotline, another manager, or a designated workplace violence prevention coordinator. The reporting process should be easy to understand and included in training.

7. Training May Need to Be More Interactive

The draft also clarifies that employees must have an opportunity to ask interactive questions during training. For remote training, questions must be answered within one business day.

This means employers should be careful with fully passive training modules. A recorded video with no meaningful Q&A process may not satisfy the final standard if this language remains.

Employers should build a process that allows employees to ask questions and receive timely responses. That could include live training, a monitored training inbox, a learning management system Q&A feature, or documented follow-up from HR or safety.

The key is not just training completion. It is training comprehension and access to answers.

8. Record Access and Confidentiality Need Attention

The revised draft appears to expand employee and representative access to certain workplace violence records, including investigation materials, with limited redaction of personal identifying information.

This could create real confidentiality challenges.

Workplace violence investigations often involve sensitive allegations, witness statements, medical information, security concerns, domestic violence or stalking facts, law enforcement involvement, and personal safety planning. Employers will need to balance transparency and access obligations with privacy, anti-retaliation, and safety concerns.

This is a good time to review:

Incident investigation forms
Violent incident logs
Witness statement practices
Redaction procedures
Record retention systems
Who receives requests for records
How confidential information is protected

If records are sloppy, incomplete, or overly revealing, the employer may have problems either way.

Current Compliance Still Matters

The draft rule is not final, but employers should not wait passively.

Cal/OSHA is already enforcing workplace violence prevention obligations under SB 553. The agency also notes that it is developing a general industry standard, and the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is required to adopt the standard no later than December 31, 2026.

That means employers should treat the draft as a roadmap, not as a reason to pause compliance. The current law still applies.

What California Employers Should Do Now

California employers should take a practical approach.

First, complete the annual review of your current workplace violence prevention plan if you have not already done so. Review the violent incident log, employee involvement procedures, plan effectiveness, reporting channels, incident response procedures, and any deficiencies that have surfaced.

Second, update training calendars. Employees must receive required workplace violence prevention training, and many employers are approaching annual retraining timelines if their original rollout occurred in 2024.

Third, compare your current plan against the April 2026 draft. Focus especially on transportation, hazard assessments, reporting channels, post-incident response, training Q&A, and record access.

Fourth, review whether your workplace violence hazard assessment is truly site-specific. A generic plan will be harder to defend if the employer never evaluated actual workplace risks.

Fifth, prepare for future revisions. Once the final standard is adopted, employers should expect to update policies, training, forms, and recordkeeping procedures.

Finally, consider submitting comments if the draft creates practical concerns for your industry. The current comment period runs through June 1, 2026.

Bottom Line

California’s revised draft workplace violence prevention standard is not final yet, but it gives employers a clear view of where Cal/OSHA is headed.

The biggest takeaways are:

Employer-provided transportation may need to be addressed.

Some small-employer exemptions may be narrower than expected.

Definitions may expand who is involved and what conduct must be assessed.

Hazard assessments need to be more specific and workplace-based.

Post-incident support and trauma counseling procedures should be clear.

Employees need reliable reporting channels outside the normal supervisor chain.

Training should allow interactive questions and timely answers.

Recordkeeping and access procedures need careful confidentiality controls.

For California employers, this is the time to tighten the current plan, not wait for the final regulation. SB 553 is already in effect, annual reviews are coming due, and Cal/OSHA’s final standard is expected by the end of 2026. Workplace violence prevention is officially part of the safety compliance core now, right alongside IIPP, training, and recordkeeping.