SB 553 compliance checklist: WVPP, records, deadlines, and penalties

Start here for SB 553 compliance

Labor Code Section 6401.9 does not just tell California employers to have a workplace violence prevention program. It tells them to document it, in specific ways, on a recurring schedule. In an inspection or after an incident, the questions are concrete: show me the plan for this site, show me who was trained and when, show me the log, and show me the hazard inspection and what you fixed.

Short answer: SB 553 compliance is not one downloaded template. It is the written workplace violence prevention plan plus the running records that prove the plan is active at a specific California worksite.

For a California employer, that means seven records: the written WVPP, training records, violent incident log, hazard identification records, hazard correction records, incident investigation records, and annual review documentation. The plan needs to be accessible now; employee-access records need to be producible within 15 calendar days; incident, hazard, and investigation records need a five-year retention trail.

That means a compliance pass should confirm three things:

• The current written WVPP is site-specific and accessible.
• Training, incident-log, hazard, investigation, and review records exist behind the plan.
• The employer can produce employee-access records on the 15-calendar-day clock and retain incident and hazard records for the required period.

For a broad "SB 553 compliance" question, use this route:

• Start the written plan with the California workplace violence prevention plan template.
• Verify the seven records in this checklist.
• Tighten the violent incident log redaction, identifying information, retention, and access rules.
• Check SB 553 penalties and Cal/OSHA records before an employee request, complaint, or inspection.
• If the worksite is healthcare-adjacent, compare SB 553 vs Title 8 section 3342.
• If a real threat or incident triggered the review, use the workplace violence threat response checklist.
• Track the SB 553 2026 update for rulemaking changes, while maintaining current-law records now.

The broader SB 553 compliance resources hub keeps those routes together.

If the paper trail does not exist, the program does not exist as far as enforcement is concerned.

Here is the full set, in the order an inspector typically asks for them. If you are not sure the law applies to you, start with Does SB 553 apply to my business?, compare SB 553 vs Title 8 section 3342 for healthcare-adjacent worksites, or run the SB 553 coverage checker.

The seven records

1. The written workplace violence prevention plan

The written Workplace Violence Prevention Plan is the anchor document. It must be written, site-specific, and in effect at all times, either as a standalone plan or as part of your Injury and Illness Prevention Program.

At minimum, it names the people responsible for implementation and contains your procedures for employee involvement, accepting and investigating reports of violence without retaliation, communicating with employees, responding to emergencies, training, identifying and correcting hazards, post-incident response, and annual review.

A generic template with the blanks left in is the most common failure. The plan has to reflect this worksite: its layout, hours, cash handling, staffing pattern, customer access, and the hazards you actually assessed. Use the California workplace violence prevention plan template as a starting point, then verify that the six supporting record types below exist.

2. Training records

Training happens when the plan is first established, annually after that, and again when a new hazard is identified or the plan changes. For each session, keep:

• The training date.
• The training contents or a summary of the training.
• The names and qualifications of the people conducting the training.
• The names and job titles of everyone who attended.

Minimum retention is one year. Keeping training records longer is often useful because it shows the annual cadence and helps explain what changed over time.

3. The violent incident log

Every workplace violence incident, including threats and regardless of whether anyone was hurt, goes into a violent incident log. The log must include required fields such as date, time, location, workplace violence type, circumstances, consequences, and information about the person completing the entry.

It also must omit personal identifying information about the people involved. Keep it for at least five years. The fields are specific enough that we wrote a separate guide to violent incident log retention and personal identifying information requirements.

4. Hazard identification and evaluation records

The plan must include procedures to identify workplace violence hazards when the plan is established, periodically after that, when a new hazard becomes known, and after an incident. Each inspection needs a record:

• When it happened.
• Who did it.
• What was evaluated.
• What was found.

Keep these records for at least five years.

5. Hazard correction records

Finding a hazard creates the obligation to fix it in a timely way and to document the fix. Broken parking lot lighting, a missing panic procedure, an unsafe lone-worker closing shift, or a confusing reporting process should all leave a correction record.

The correction record should show what was corrected, how, and when. Keep it for at least five years. Inspectors read hazard identification and correction records together; an inspection that found problems with no correction record behind it creates a worse story than a clean inspection.

6. Incident investigation records

After an incident, the plan requires a post-incident response and investigation separate from the log entry. Document what happened, who was involved in responding, what you concluded, and what changed as a result.

Keep these investigation records for at least five years. Keep them separate from the employee-access log and packet, because they can contain witness, HR, security, and legal material that should not be dumped into a routine employee record response.

7. Annual plan review documentation

The plan must be reviewed for effectiveness at least annually, whenever a deficiency becomes apparent, and after an incident. Keep evidence that the review happened:

• The review date.
• Who participated.
• What was evaluated.
• Any revisions made.
• How employees were involved.

This is the record that proves the program is alive rather than a binder from 2024.

Retention and access, in one table

Two deadlines to internalize: 15 calendar days for employee record requests, and five years of retention for incident and hazard records. Calendar days means weekends count. For the request-by-request rules, see what SB 553 records must be produced in 15 calendar days.

See the sample SB 553 audit packet to preview how the plan, training records, incident log, hazard corrections, open gaps, and audit trail fit together before requesting a setup review.

A 10-minute self-audit

Run down this list for each worksite. Anything you cannot put your hands on in five minutes is a gap:

• The current written plan for this specific site, with the responsible person's actual name and title in it.
• A training record from the last 12 months for every current employee, including hires made mid-year.
• The violent incident log, even if it is empty. It should exist and staff should know how incidents get into it.
• The most recent hazard inspection, dated within the review cycle your plan promises.
• A correction record for every hazard that inspection found.
• An investigation record for any incident in the log.
• Documentation of the last annual review, with employee involvement noted.

If the gaps are mostly "we did it but never wrote it down," you are closer than you think. The fix is process, not heroics. If the gaps are "we have not done it," see what is at stake and start with the plan. If the gap appeared after an actual threat, use the workplace violence threat response checklist before you update the log or investigation file.

Sources

Frequently asked questions