Preventing Workplace Violence

Preventing Workplace Violence

Introduction

America has a new epidemic that has been growing in the past few years called “Workplace Violence.” What is workplace violence? Workplace violence is the threat of violence or violence against employees at work. Workplace violence includes, but is not limited to, bullying, intimidation, threats, stalking, property damage, domestic violence, physical attacks and murder. “According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2001, an estimated 1.7 million workers are injured each year during workplace assaults; in addition, violent workplace incidents account for 18% of all violent crime in the United States” (Workplace Violence 1.1). It should be unacceptable for 1.7 million workers to be injured in the workplace, especially for the preventable injures. Some employees have high-risk occupations in the public settings like law enforcement, teacher, taxicab drivers, health care, and convenient store clerks, to name a few, and are more at risk from third person or strangers who commit violent crimes. Third person or strangers come into the workplace and they commit violent crimes, such as sexual assault, robbery or murder. However, law enforcement personnel, fire fighter personnel and/or medical personnel go into the crime scenes and are at risk of violent crimes. In the workplace, one may encounter the three types of workplace violence, but companies can use a number of measures to prevent workplace violence.

Types of Workplace Violence

There are three types of workplace violence.

Type I occurs when the offender of these crimes is not related to anyone at the business or their employees. There are more crimes committed in this category than the other categories, and the crime is usually robbery.

Type II happens when the offender who is committing crimes is receiving services, and the victim is a service provider.

Type III occurs when the offender who is committing crimes to employees or the business had or has a relationship with their employees or business. Most offenders in this type of violence are current or former disgruntled employees, current or former friends of employees, relatives of employees, or current or former customers. Many people know about Type III workplace violence from a disgruntled employee or former employee because of the media attention it receives.

Out of the three types of workplace violence only Type III can be preventable. In most cases, Type III workplace violence allows business personnel time to recognize the signs or clues of a potential workplace crime that maybe committed by an offender. Some factors that might lead to workplace violence would be smaller salaries, fewer benefits, downsizing, wrongful discharge, and reorganization. Also, if a disgruntled employee has access to firearms, then they might retaliate against co-workers. Employee complaints may not be handled correctly due to trust issues toward management or if methods for handing complaints are out dated. There are three ways for a company to handle workplace violence: the first step is to reduce or prevent workplace violence, the second step is to have a reaction plan to reduce or prevent workplace violence, and the third step ...