Short answer: if it happened at your workplace — or while an employee was working anywhere — it belongs in your violent incident log, even if nobody was touched or hurt. The core follow-through is three things: the log entry, a written investigation, and a dated plan review. If an employee was injured, workers' comp paperwork starts too, and a serious injury adds Cal/OSHA's 8-hour report.
If an employee needed more than first aid: DWC-1 claim form within one working day, Form 5020 to your claims administrator within five days. If an employee was admitted to the hospital beyond observation or diagnostic testing (or worse): report to Cal/OSHA within 8 hours. Injuries only to customers or visitors don't trigger the Cal/OSHA report, but document their care too.
Date, time, location, what happened, who responded, and the consequences — plus the type: Type 1 (stranger/criminal intent), Type 2 (customer or client), Type 3 (worker on worker), Type 4 (personal relationship). No names or personal identifying information go in the log itself.
Camera footage before it's overwritten, short written statements from witnesses, photos of the scene if relevant. Keep these with your investigation notes — a 5-year keep.
What led up to it, what allowed it to happen (staffing, layout, lighting, process), and what you're changing. It doesn't need to be long — it needs to be dated, honest, and specific to your workplace.
Corrective action, the person responsible, and the completion date. Even a modest fix, documented, is exactly what inspectors look for after an incident.
Required after every incident. If the fight exposed a gap — say, no clear process for aggressive customers — revise the plan and retrain on the change.
No discipline, schedule cuts, or cold shoulder. Retaliation claims regularly outgrow the original incident.
What if it was two customers and no employee was involved? The law protects employees, but a brawl in your lobby still says something about workplace hazards. Log it, note how staff responded, and treat it in your hazard assessment — it's cheap insurance if Cal/OSHA ever asks how you handle public-facing risk.
Cal/OSHA's overview, including what the incident log must contain.
Only needed if an employee was seriously hurt — but then it's urgent.
If the fight caught you without a plan, start here today.