Risk Management

Safety: Model Program - Appendix I

Violence in the Workplace

• Definition
• Cost
• Hiring
• Safe Discipline
• Security

DEFINITION
Violence in the workplace is not easily defined and takes many forms. The following are some common examples:

• Struck a supervisor.
• Intimidated another employee with a threat of assault.
• Tampered with your compustem.
• Attacked an employee with a weapon.
• Vandalized your employee restrooms on a repeated basis.
• Sent threatening letters or faxes to people in the company.
• Slashed the tires of cars in your parking lot.
• Killed themselves in or near your facility.
• Returned to your workplace as a disgruntled customer and harmed someone.

Violence may not always be directed toward someone, but may be directed toward something. Damaging keyboards, copy machines, fax machines, or postage meters is also violence in the workplace. Violence ranges from the hostile employee who assaults his supervisor, or a co-worker, to an executive who gets laid off or terminated and then refuses to leave the building.

The Workplace Violence Spectrum is a time line that reads from left to right. It starts at the far left with the "normal" employee, who doesn't engage in any kinds of antisocial, dangerous, or destructive behavior at all, and moves to the far right point, which signifies the homicidal killer at the workplace.

Normal Employee
The normal employee presents no threat of workplace violence. He or she can work with others, get along with supervisors and management, and solve workplace problems by positive, non-threatening means.

Covert Employee
The covert employee is the "closet" employee who engages in silent, hidden, or behind the scenes activities that serve to disrupt the workplace. This includes small-scale sabotage, vandalism, anonymous letter writing, threatening faxes, and questionable voice mail messages. He usually stays covert. Here, the level of destruction or damage is less intrusive against people and aimed more at objects. The threats tend to be indirect and nonverbal.

The Fence-Sitter
The fence-sitter sits on the border between covert activities and actual violence. Here, the level of destruction, injury, or damage is more intrusive, aimed at inanimate objects or people. The threats tend to be more direct and verbal. He may lash out at someone in the company, or may target someone in the company for intimidation, nonphysical threats, or direct threats with no hands-on movements yet. This person may become more of a danger to himself, more of a danger to the people around him, and more of a danger to the organization. This employee has moved into a highly suspect stage.

The Overt Employee
With the overt employee, the message is clear. The threat level is high and the potential for this person to attack other workers is a strong possibility. The activities range from assaults with great bodily injury, extreme cases of sabotage, vandalism, or intentional damage to assets, machines, or materials, property or work items belonging to other employees, and any other symbol--tangible or not--that represents the organization this person dislikes.

The Dangerous Employee
The dangerous employee is the homicidal employee. This person may be psychotic, armed, and bent on cutting a wide path of destruction. The signs will usually be very apparent prior to most criminal activities. Threats, confrontations, and armed aggression move this employee to the most dangerous level.

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COST
Violence on the job or even the mere threat of it can be perilously expensive. Statistics in an issue of 'The Lipman Report" shows stress-related claims cost on an average $15,000 to $20,000 per claim. Workplace injuries--not necessarily from violence- cost an average of $10,172 to $15,745. Examples of violence costs are:

• Personal injury claims
• Damage to equipment
• Increases in insurance premiums
• Lawsuit costs
• Lost work hours from intimidated employees
• Psychological costs
• Loss of qualified personnel as a result of intimidation

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HIRING
Hiring someone without doing at least a rudimentary background check is taking a big risk today. The following steps are recommended before bringing an employee into your organization's environment.

1. Work history
2. Military history
3. Criminal history
4. Credit history
5. Driving record

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SAFE DISCIPLINE
Discipline is a necessary part of life. Without discipline, the organization would operate in a chaotic state. With it, officials can correct behaviors at the lowest levels before they escalate into full blown incidents. The issue then is how to safely discipline. The ideal goal of any discipline program is to strike a balance between the too heavy handed and austere approach and the too lax approach that gives employees the appearance there is no control in the organization. One model of safe discipline that relies on collaboration was written by Richard C. Grote and Eric L. Harvey. They wrote a step-by-step plan for discipline at all levels of any organization. The highlights of this model are:

Not always can we point fingers at our employees for generating the potential for workplace violence. Sometimes it is the supervisor, who elicits these responses in his attempts at managing his employees or in this case manipulating them. The first step in correcting their behaviors is identifying or categorizing them. Generally these kinds of supervisors fall into two equally disturbing categories:

1. The toxic supervisor. This person goes about the organization creating discontent wherever he or she roams. Employees dislike these types for their terrible people skills, rude behavior, and their reputation for harassing behaviors--sexual, physical, or psychological. The toxic supervisor "wins" through intimidation, using various browbeating or put-down techniques to gain employee compliance. It's not uncommon for these kinds of supervisors to be the subject of violent attacks by disgruntled employees. Other upset employees may retaliate in other nonphysical ways using vandalism, sabotage, or passive-aggressive work slowdowns or stoppages to get back at the supervisor.
2. The violent supervisor. Although far more rare than the toxic supervisor, the violent supervisor is inherently dangerous. This person uses threats, physical intimidation, extortion, and actual physical violence to gain compliance. Employees fear this supervisor for the physical damage he may do to them. Worse yet, they may feel like they have very little recourse in the organization if they speak up against a supervisor who makes them feel fearful. And the violent supervisor may be so good at covering his tracks or blaming other employees for their "overreaction" that he can get away with his crimes. In a large, heavily layered, bureaucratic organization, it may take a tragedy or violent outburst of significant proportion to bring this person to the attention of senior management.

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SECURITY
Since no two facilities are alike, a detailed guide to the physical security of any place of work must be determined by a professional security survey. However, there are a few basic guidelines to security measures used at any site, many of which can prevent a disturbed individual, disgruntled employee, or ordinary troublemaker from gaining access to the facility.

ACCESS CONTROL
A plan may be needed to limit access to the facility. This plan should include methods of identifying employees, visitors, vendors and solicitors. This will allow you to better isolate intruders on site. Be sure whatever method you use for identification, upon termination you resign that employee's identification. An appropriate warning system should also be installed. This can be used to alert officials to intruders as well as security to threatening incidents within.

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