Employee Involvement in Assessing Your Prevention Plan's Effectiveness

California’s new workplace violence prevention law is unparalleled in its requirements for employee involvement throughout the entire process. 

Even when you think you’re done. When you’ve created your prevention plan, implemented it, and provided your employee trainings, you’re not finished with employee involvement in the your workplace violence prevention process. 

California requires employers to regularly assess the effectiveness of your workplace violence program through…you guessed it… employee involvement.

In this piece we’ll look at employee input in assessing your prevention plan once it’s been created. 

The new law states that employers must have, “Procedures to review the effectiveness of the plan and revise the plan as needed, including, but not limited to, procedures to obtain the involvement of employees and authorized employee representatives in reviewing the plan. The plan shall be reviewed at least annually, when a deficiency is observed or becomes apparent, and after a workplace violence incident.”

And just a reminder that California requires every element of your plan to be specific to your employees’ safety hazards, as employers must develop, “effective procedures to obtain the active involvement of employees, and authorized employee representatives in developing and implementing the plan, including but not limited to, through their participation in identifying, evaluating, and correcting workplace violence hazards, in designing and implementing training.” 

I investigated a lot of workplace violence in 30+ years of conducting investigations. I helped to hold a lot of employers accountable for their failure to protect their employees. Employers often claimed they did what they could to keep employees safe. But the employees I interviewed often disagreed. Strongly.

Physical harm to an employee is never the best way to identify your plan’s short comings. Being proactive, and checking in with your employees before anyone is harmed is definitely the best way to measure the effectiveness of your plan. And California requires you to do just that.

Here’s some questions to ask your employees once your plan is done to help assess the effectiveness of the plan you’ve created:

•  Does the workplace violence prevention plan address your specific safety concerns?
•  If not, what concerns do you still have?
•  Does the plan identify the safety hazards that you believe you face from the 4 source types of workplace violence?
•  If not, what safety hazards did the plan not address?
•  Do you believe the approach taken to remedying your specific safety hazards has been effective?
•  If not, why not?
•  Do you believe we’ve provided you with enough training to identify workplace violence threats, to address those threats, and to avoid physical harm from those threats?
•  Do you believe that the training we provided was the type of training you felt you needed?
•  If not, what areas would you like for us to cover with more depth?
•  Do you understand the different elements of the prevention plan?
•  If not, what aspects of the plan need to be clearer?
•  Does the plan make it clear who you should notify if you are facing harassment, bullying, or other types of workplace violence?
•  If not, what needs to be clearer?
•  Does the plan address the specific steps you need to follow to make a workplace violence complaint?
•  If not, what would help clarify the process?
•  Does the plan clarify the investigation process sufficiently enough for you to feel any complaint you bring forward will be adequately investigated.
•  Is there anything that you’ve thought of that you think should be part of the prevention plan, its implementation, and your training that you feel we missed?

These questions just scratch the surface in the information your employees can provide to help you assess the effectiveness of your prevention plan. 

You should conduct this type of assessment at least once a year, after an incident occurs, or when you recognize additional safety hazards that you initially did not anticipate.

If you feel you can use some help in creating your workplace violence prevention plan, I’ve put together an incredible resource, my CA Employers Workplace Violence Prevention Tool Kit. It’s your step-by-step guide to creating and implementing the workplace violence prevention plan required in California’s new workplace violence prevention plan.

Would you like some help in establishing and implementing your plan? Send me an email at [email protected] and we can set up some time to chat about your workplace violence prevention needs.