The new SB 553 bill requires an employer to “establish, implement, and maintain, at all times in all work areas, an effective workplace violence prevention plan containing specified information”.

The new SB 553 bill also authorizes “a collective bargaining representative of an employee, as described, to seek a temporary restraining order and an order after hearing on behalf of the employee and other employees at the workplace, as described”.

You will see a lot of checklists for the SB 553 requirements, and you will see a lot of vendors positioning their assessments, policy reviews, and training to check off those requirement boxes. These are the “easy low hanging fruit” services offered after every new bill, law, and/or standard is released.  But ask yourself this question, with multiple bills, laws, and standards that already exist for workplace violence, why are so many workplace violence incidents still happening and even increasing?

This is where Awareity is different and why you should contact Awareity. We will help you with the “Do List”.  Doing is the key to preventing and equipping your organization and your people to DO the right things is what will help you prevent workplace violence incidents as well as prevent fines, liabilities, lawsuits, settlements, negative headlines, reputation damages, tragedies, and many other costly consequences.

For example, SB 553 requires:

  • Identify responsible people for implementing the plan
  • Obtain active involvement of employees and employee representatives
  • Procedures to identify, evaluate, and correct workplace violence hazards
  • Ensuring workplace violence incidents are reported, investigated, recorded
  • Procedures for accepting and responding to reports of workplace violence
  • Effective procedures to communicate with employees
  • Procedures for how employees report incidents to employer/law enforcement
  • Procedures for anonymous or confidential reports without fear of reprisal
  • Procedures for how employee concerns will be investigated / informed
  • Procedures to respond to actual / potential workplace violence incidents
  • Procedures for initial and periodic inspections after incidents / reports
  • Procedures to correct workplace violence hazards
  • Procedures for post-incident response and investigation
  • Procedures to review the effectiveness of the workplace violence prevention plan
  • Procedures and log to record information for every workplace violence incident
  • Procedures for information required in every logged workplace violence incident
  • Documented descriptions, classifications, incident types, consequences, etc.
  • Training for employees initially and annually and new changes are made to plan
  • Records for all training of all employees and maintained for minimum of 1 year
  • Records of incidents, evaluations, and corrections maintained for minimum of 5 years
  • Procedures for obtaining temporary restraining orders
  • Procedures for sharing information with employees, division, and others

As you will notice… all of the bulleted items above require people to be aware AND equipped to DO and ACT according to procedures, laws, and the updated workplace violence prevention plan.

Because employees, employee representatives, law enforcement, courts, and others will be scattered across departments and locations, it is critical to equip and empower people with trusted, secure, and centralized platform of tools to achieve proactive workplace violence prevention, compliance, documentation, training, and numerous other ongoing efforts.

Awareity has been leading the way in the transformation from “Watch It to Stop It” for over 10 years and we are prepared to assist you with SB 553 and numerous other workplace, employee, and community challenges.

Click here for more information on our Workplace Violence Survey to get started!