Workplace Violence Prevention: 7 Key Steps for Employers

OSHA defines workplace violence as “violence or the threat of violence against workers.”

Further, it’s not just what happens to employees while at your place of business, but It can occur outside the workplace too.

Workplace violence can range from threats and verbal abuse, to physical assaults and homicide. In fact, workplace violence is one of the leading causes of job-related deaths.

Employer’s Responsibility to Prevent Workplace Violence

“The Occupational Safety and Health Act’s (OSH Act) General Duty Clause requires employers to provide a safe and healthful workplace for all workers covered by the OSH Act. Employers who do not take reasonable steps to prevent or abate a recognized violence hazard in the workplace can be cited.” (OSHA Workplace Violence Fact Sheet).

According to OSHA, employers should “establish a workplace violence prevention program or incorporate the information into an existing accident prevention program, employee handbook, or manual of standard operating procedures.”

Protecting Employees from Workplace Violence is Smart Business

Although the government believes that protecting your employees from workplace violence is an obligation, it’s much more than that. In fact, it’s really about smart business. It costs companies in many ways:

• Lost work time from the physical trauma of violence. Higher rates of absenteeism due to feeling unsafe, and not just to those directly targeted by the violence, but to co-workers too.
• Higher rates of employee turnover. Up to 40% increase after an incident. Employees that don’t feel safe while working, whether in the workplace, or out in the community, quit their jobs.
• According to a survey by Gallup, it costs an employee roughly 150% of an employee’s salary, to find and train a replacement when an employee quits.
• Lost productivity. According to The National Institute for the Prevention of Workplace Violence, employee productivity can decrease by up to 50% in the six to 18 weeks following an incident.                                                                                                        

So when it comes to workplace safety, what should employers focus on to make sure they’re doing right by their employee’s safety?

A 7 Pronged Approach to Preventing Workplace Violence

I’ve taught hundreds of individuals, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies, including the staff of a US Senator, how to be safe in the workplace and while out in the community.

Here’s what I believe you should focus upon when it comes to staff trainings.

Situational Awarenes: Whether in the workplace, or out in the community, the ability to RECOGNIZE and AVOID a threat is the single most important element to helping your staff feel safe. Doing so requires giving your employees the ability to read the environment around them in a way that becomes automatic, AND to give them the ability to quickly formulate different options on how to avoid the safety risk. Practice is essential to automating this skill.

De-escalation: Since the start of the Covid epidemic many businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies have seen their employees experience a rise in angry customers, clients, vendors, and members of the public. While not every angry situation leads to threats of violence, or violence itself, the likelihood of things going south quickly is much greater than before the pandemic. Employees should learn how to defuse stressful situations by keeping themselves calm, developing the skill of reflective listening, reading an angry person’s body language to determine if there’s a chance to de-escalate, or to prepare for a physical attack, and using your own body language to display calm. Role playing exercises are critical to developing these skills.

Changing the Dynamics of an Attack: At the very onset of an attack, your employees must respond quickly, in a manner that allows them to safely survive the initial onslaught. To do this requires forcing an attacker out of his game plan, making him recalibrate his attack, which creates more opportunity to exit safety or to engage if necessary. There are many different levels of engagement necessary to change the dynamics of an attack. These can be learned through patterning exercises.

Self-Defense: The purpose of self-defense is not to fight. It’s to create an opportunity to exit safely from a dangerous encounter. It should be simple enough that anyone, regardless of size or strength can perform the techniques. It should be something that can easily be practiced to make automatic. And above all, it should take into consideration the way that attacks occur.

Effective Internal Investigations: One of the best things an employer can do to reduce the risk of workplace violence, is to quickly and effectively investigate threats, and potential threats involving staff, vendors, and contractors. Having a good internal investigation program allows employers to quickly get to the bottom of allegations that arise, and to address them based upon facts. Investigation procedures should be standardized, and uniform, and should prohibit retaliation for filing a complaint, or participating as a witness.

Internal Communications Methods: When there is a situation that begins arising, staff should have the ability to communicate to managers that a situation is developing. It can be mechanical, such as a wireless door bell buzzer, or it can person to person, such as using code words to signal the need for assistance.

Premises Security: Employers need to think beyond just security cards. Furniture layout, lighting, means of ingress, and egress, as well as parking areas, all should be configured to maximize safety, and the ability for staff to exit an escalating situation before it becomes violent.

Ready to learn more about keeping staff safe. Download our free staff safety checklist for actionable steps your organization can take right now (see below). Or watch our free pre-recorded staff safety workshop to go even more in depth in ways to keep your staff safe (see the sidebar).