What is the new ANSI Workplace Violence Standard?
Workplace violence prevention is often reduced to a policy, a training module, or a response plan. Those tools matter, but they do not by themselves create a program that helps people raise concerns early, makes responsibility clear, and gives an organization a disciplined way to act.
The existing consensus standard, Workplace Violence and Active Assailant – Prevention, Intervention, and Response, ANSI/ASIS WVPI AA-2020, gives organizations a common framework for building that kind of program. The pending ASIS WVPI Standard continues that conversation by bringing safety, security, human resources, legal, operations, and leadership into the same framework. The goal is not to promise that violence can be predicted perfectly. The goal is to help organizations prevent, identify, assess, manage, and learn from concerning behavior and workplace violence.
What the ANSI Workplace Violence Standard is
ASIS International develops security standards and guidelines. When an ASIS standard is approved through the American National Standards Institute consensus process, it provides a recognized framework that organizations can use to structure their programs. This is where the ANSI ASIS WVPI AA-2020 came from and what led to the development of the new ANSI Workplace Violence Standard. In this case, WVPI means workplace violence prevention and intervention.
The standard is not a single policy template, and it is not a guarantee against violence. It is a practical management framework. It asks whether an organization has established clear ownership, understands its risks, has working reporting pathways, prepares qualified people to respond, protects sensitive information, and reviews whether the program is working.
What ANSI ASIS WVPI AA-2020 established
Workplace Violence and Active Assailant – Prevention, Intervention, and Response, ANSI/ASIS WVPI AA-2020, gave organizations a detailed foundation for workplace violence prevention. It described the policies, processes, and protocols organizations can adopt to identify, assess, respond to, and mitigate threatening, intimidating, or violent behavior affecting the workplace.
Its value is that it treats workplace violence as more than an emergency-response issue. The 2020 standard connects prevention, intervention, response, and recovery. It recognizes that concerning behavior may emerge through employee relations, client interactions, intimate partner violence, security events, or other circumstances. Those concerns require coordination across functions, not an isolated response from one department.
The 2020 standard highlights several durable ideas: build a culture in which people report concerns early; establish clear policies and procedures; use a multidisciplinary threat management approach; protect privacy while sharing necessary information; train people according to their responsibilities; and learn after an incident or near miss. These ideas remain relevant regardless of an organization’s size or industry.
Why the pending ASIS WVPI Standard matters
ANSI/ASIS WVPI AA-2020 provided substantial guidance on prevention, policy, threat assessment, response, training, and recovery. The pending ASIS ANSI Workplace Violence Standard, announced for release in October 2026, moves further toward a management-system approach. It uses more direct requirements and organizes the program around establishment, leadership and governance, planning, implementation, evaluation, and continual improvement.
That shift changes the question leaders should ask. Instead of asking only whether the organization has a workplace violence policy, leaders should ask whether the program can be shown to operate as a connected system. Can someone report a concern? Does the right team receive and assess it? Are decisions documented? Are people trained for their roles? Does leadership review what the organization is learning?
Some of the most important themes in the pending standard are leadership accountability, a current workplace violence risk assessment, multiple reporting pathways, a competent multidisciplinary threat management team, role-based training, centralized records, confidentiality, program evaluation, audits, and continual improvement. The final published standard will define the precise requirements, but organizations do not need to wait to examine these core capabilities.
What a mature program looks like
The details must fit the organization, but a mature WVPI program typically brings together several connected elements:
- Leadership ownership, defined authority, and sufficient resources.
- A clear policy, practical procedures, and more than one way to report concerning behavior.
- A current assessment of workplace violence risks and vulnerabilities.
- A competent multidisciplinary threat management team with a defined case management process.
- Training for the workforce and deeper preparation for the people who triage and manage cases.
- Confidential handling of information, appropriate records, evaluation, and continual improvement.
These are not separate projects. A reporting channel is only useful when people trust it, know where it goes, and see that concerns are handled appropriately. A threat management team is only effective when its role, authority, competence, and access to relevant information are clear. Training is more useful when it reflects the actual decisions people are expected to make.
Why every organization should care about the ANSI Workplace Violence Standard
Every organization has people, workplaces, work relationships, and moments of conflict or stress. That does not mean every organization will experience serious violence. It does mean every organization benefits from knowing how concerns will be recognized, reported, assessed, and managed before a situation becomes more serious.
For a leader, the standard offers a practical way to test whether responsibility is clear and whether the organization is prepared. It helps reveal the gap between having written policies and having a program that people can actually use. It also gives leaders a shared framework for allocating resources, setting expectations, and asking meaningful questions after an incident or a change in risk.
For managers and employees, the ANSI Workplace Violence Standard matters because early reporting only works when people know what to do, trust the process, and believe their concerns will be handled with care. A clear program can reduce uncertainty for the person who receives a troubling report and support better coordination when a case involves human resources, security, legal counsel, employee assistance, or law enforcement.
The expected October release gives organizations a practical reason to examine the system they already have. Many will find that they have important pieces in place: a policy, employee assistance resources, security protocols, incident reporting, or a threat management team. The opportunity is to connect those pieces into a coherent program and identify gaps before a concern tests the process.
What CPPS will cover next?
In the weeks ahead, CPPS will examine the 2026 standard in practical terms: what changed from 2020, what the new requirements mean for leadership and program owners, how threat management teams fit into the framework, and how organizations can prepare for implementation.
If your organization is reviewing its program in anticipation of the October release, CPPS can help assess current practices, strengthen threat management capability, and develop a practical implementation path. Follow this series and connect with CPPS to continue the conversation.
Note: The pending ASIS ANSI Workplace Violence Standard is announced for release in October 2026. The final published standard will control.
You can find the original standard here: https://webstore.ansi.org/standards/asis/ASISWVPIAA2020
Find out more about the ANSI Workplace Violence Standards here: https://www.cpps.com/new-asis-ansi-standard/
