The Annual WVP Review Nobody Scheduled: Lab. Code §6401.9 Is Not a One-Time Project
Belief: California’s workplace violence prevention plan was a 2024 project. Once the plan was written and the training was delivered, the obligation was satisfied.
Why the plan is not a one-time project
Labor Code §6401.9 does not work that way. The statute imposes ongoing obligations, including annual review of the plan, retraining when the plan changes or when new hazards emerge, recordkeeping, an incident log, and a process for receiving and responding to employee reports of workplace-violence concerns. A plan that was correct on July 1, 2024, and has not been touched since then is almost certainly not the plan the statute requires today.
The break point is the small-employer ownership gap. The owner who wrote the plan in 2024 has moved on to other priorities. The HR person who delivered the training is no longer with the company, or has been pulled into other work. The plan sits on a shared drive. Nobody is monitoring whether the hazard assessment still matches the worksite, whether the incident log has been maintained, or whether new employees have been trained. When Cal/OSHA shows up, or an employee files a complaint, the file looks frozen.
What records show ongoing engagement
The proof pressure point is whether the employer can show ongoing engagement: the date of the most recent annual review, the training records for new hires, the incident log entries (and the response to each), and the employee-report receipts. Each of those is a separate element, and each requires a contemporaneous record.
The corrective frame is to put the WVP plan on a calendar — annual review, training tracking tied to onboarding, and a monthly or quarterly check on the incident log. The plan is not a deliverable; it is a system. Small California employers tend to treat it like a one-time compliance product. The statute is structured to test whether the system is actually running.
This post shares general information based on common patterns I see in California workplaces. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and outcomes depend on specific facts — no lawyer can guarantee a result. Past results do not guarantee or predict future outcomes. AI may have been used to create this post. All content reviewed by a CA attorney before publication. This post may be attorney advertising.
Michael Trust Law, APC, 703 Pier Avenue, Ste. B367, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254: michaeltrustlaw.com