Defining workplace violence

The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) has identified four specific types of workplace violence.

Type 1: Criminal intent generally encompasses perpetrators who have no specific relationship with an employer or its employees. Examples include shoplifting, robbery or mobs of individuals who rob retailers. Acts of terrorism would also fall into this category.
Type 2: Customer/client violence tends to occur when there is a relationship between the individuals such as a teacher/student, nurse/patient or a customer/client.
Type 3: Worker-on-worker or lateral violence can involve a current or former worker who makes threats against other employees or managers in the workplace.
Type 4: Personal relationship violence in the workplace generally occurs when the perpetrator has a personal relationship with an employee of the company rather than with the business itself. An example would be a nurse who is shot by an ex-spouse.

Prevention strategies

OSHA provides several resources for employers to help them identify and mitigate workplace risks based on the type of business they operate. When it comes to creating an effective workplace violence prevention program, there are seven elements to consider.

Have a clearly written workplace violence policy statement. This should be accessible to all employees and identify what constitutes unacceptable behavior.
Establish a threat assessment team to help identify risks and processes for addressing violent incidents or behaviors. Team members can include hospital administration, a safety professional, frontline staff, union representatives, security personnel, legal professionals and representatives from human resources.
Conduct a hazard assessment. This includes identifying weak points and issues that need to be addressed as part of the plan.
Implement workplace hazard control and prevention strategies. Based on the hazard assessment, these may include employee I.D. cards, internal communications systems, specific security procedures, employee training and awareness, and assistance programs to address domestic violence at home.
Training and education are critical and there are several practical tools available online for employers.
Create procedures for incident reporting, investigation, follow-up and evaluation, and ensure employees know who to contact for different types of concerns.
Recordkeeping includes capturing incidents of abuse, training logs, minutes of safety meetings, insurance records, employee questionnaires, and workers' comp records.

While it is impossible to prevent every incident of workplace violence, by analyzing the risks, creating a supportive environment, offering communication and empathy training, establishing a clear workplace violence policy, training employees to recognize the signs, and creating an action plan that everyone in can access will help mitigate the risks and improve the outcome should an incident occur.

Special Reports /

Keys to preventing workplace violence incidents

Related Stories

Recommended For You