Attacking Workplace Violence

Workplace Violence vs. Safety

And I know, in the spirit of being open and honest, workplace violence can be a difficult thing to get a handle on, and sometimes even more difficult to spot ahead of time. Despite obstacles, the need to be more proactive could not be more important for several reasons – violence should not be tolerated on a work site, especially in regards to the safety of all workers. Virtually any reason you can come up with refers back to that safety fundamental – having a safe workplace for everyone.

There was a very important article in a recent issue of Professional Safety magazine that addressed workplace violence, under the “Safety Matters” department of the magazine. The article looked into the reality of workplace violence, its prevalence and the damage it does in many workplaces, and tried to give some insights to encourage some proactive steps in order to keep violence from occurring in your workplace.

Denial Should Only be a River

A couple of key issues that get in the way of detecting workplace violence, or a potentially violent situation, are denial and accumulation.

With denial, workers may see signs of violence, but deny that it ever could happen in their workplace. They always read about these events happening someplace else, and never in our own backyards. We generally seem to believe that our homes and workplaces are the two safest places for us to be every day. So to think that violence could happen in one or both “safe places” seems impossible to believe or wrap the head around.

Accumulation is easy to miss. It is not very often that signs of violence appear two or three at a time where it is easy to put the pieces together. Often there is an isolated incident or behavior  that may well signal a possible violent act later, but taken in its own vacuum can be seen as nothing important – a nothingburger, as it can be called.  Sometimes a person can show a sign one day and then go days or weeks before showing another sign. It is important that when the same person is behaving differently, that all those instances be recorded, if not reported to supervisors.

Some Signs of Violent Tendencies

As was written earlier, these signs will often accumulate and won’t all appear in a short amount of time where it can be easy to spot, but there are certainly some signals toward violent tendencies that supervisors and peers should pay attention to on the floor.

• A decrease in productivity.
• Perceived changes in work habits or routines. If a worker generally checks voicemails and e-mails in the morning, and suddenly changes to the afternoons or even starts skipping days, that is a potential sign. Not by itself, of course, but in conjunction with any of these other signals.
• A few too many sick days.
• Missing deadlines that weren’t being missed before.
• Changes in personality. Someone who generally reserved may tend to lash out more, and someone who is normally gregarious may start to be more subdued or depressed or introverted.
• Obsession about violent acts. If someone starts talking about violent acts in the news, and keeps talking about them often, and this topic is not something that was normal before or is actually uncomfortable to hear, that may be a sign of potential trouble.

Reportable Observations

As was written before, many of these signals could show up in isolation, which by itself may or may not mean anything. But if you see a sign like what was listed above, from any employee, it must at least be recorded in as much detail as possible. Ideally, every report should be submitted to a manager or to human resources, provided you have a detailed and comprehensive reporting system in place, especially one that prevents higher-ups from ignoring the reports sent to them.

Part of this reporting plan should involve having an after-hours number to call in case some of these signs show up with an employee after work hours, like when hanging out with co-workers for a drink after work. All of these signs should be reported as soon as possible; very few of them can wait until morning – it’s possible that the morning may be the time that the violence may occur, so do not take chances and leave something unreported even if it is 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. Have a contact number, even if it just the safety officer’s cell phone. A lifeline is critical.

Being Proactive

By now, I normally would have teased you and left the “good stuff” for another post later in the week, but this topic is too important to wait. As you now know the signs to look for that may indicate a potentially violent employee, you also need to know the steps to take to fend off violence before it happens. Time is of the essence, you know.

There are three very important steps to take, as mentioned in this Professional Safety piece. They should be done (or at least started) before one of these aforementioned signals come to the fore in your workplace:

1. Create a crisis team, made up of representatives from several divisions (including safety, risk management, legal, human resources, etc.) that meets once a year to assess vulnerabilities, and meets as needed when a potential violence threat is determined. The goal is to watch for these threats, address sensitive terminations, threat assessments and do a de-brief after an incident occurs to gauge the company’s response and make any adjustments to the protocol.
2. Conduct a “gap analysis” to find out where the holes are in the safety protocol for addressing potential violence.
3. Employee training. This involves training employees not only in observing the signals mentioned above, but also how to report them, who to report them to, and the full protocol for handling such situations. All communication in this area must be as specific and clear as possible. Confusion can lead to indecision, which can mean something does not get reported when it should, and thus the necessary steps aren’t taken and the risk of violence increases.

Workplace violence is serious business – it is a significant threat not just to an individual worker, but to a group of workers, which means it can have higher risks than an employee using certain equipment without proper training. As with most safety issues, mitigating risk involves keen observation and detailed reporting, and a personal conversation about working safely when and if necessary.

Safety is about prevention. If violence is already happening (and it could have been prevented), it’s already too late to keep people safe.