Are Employers overlooking 75% of Workplace Violence Threats?

California’s new workplace violence prevention law flipped a switch of sorts when it comes to workplace violence prevention. 

Previous to the law, those employers that addressed workplace violence, did so through a policy prohibiting abusive conduct by employees in the workplace. 

And that’s because conventional wisdom viewed workplace violence as violence committed by a current or former employee. Full stop.

But that type of violence only accounts for 25% of all workplace violence incidents. Relying on that approach meant that employers overlooked 75% of the violence hazards their employees faced. 

Percentage wise, that’s a lot of safety risks to miss.

California’s new requirements are forcing that to change. Employers must now identify, remediate, and train employees in the specific safety threats they face. And not just from co-worker violence, but from community violence, invitee violence, and violence committed by your employee’s personal connections from outside of work.

The challenge for employers is that these violence sources require a whole different approach.

In this piece, we’ll look at why employers have to take a different approach to address safety risks from other source types of violence.

I learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work to prevent violence during the 30 plus years that I conducted investigations into workplace and community violence. And that information guides the way that I work with small to mid-sized employers to help them implement and maintain an effective workplace violence prevention program. 

California’s new workplace violence prevention law sent a lot of employers into uncharted waters, as most employers aren’t familiar enough with violence to know how to prevent it. My California Employers Workplace Violence Prevention Checklist helps you take the guesswork out of creating a workplace violence prevention plan that protects your employees and complies with California’s new law.  

Refocusing Workplace Violence Prevention 

Simply put. You can’t train, discipline, or fire people who don’t work for you. 

But, what you can do, is to prepare your employees to deal with the safety threats that come from the other sources of workplace violence.

To do this effectively, you need to know something about the nature of the threats your employees face from those other sources of violence. And to provide your employees with strategies they can then use to avoid being physically harmed from violence by those different source types.

Here’s a way to do so effectively. 

Invitee Sourced Violence

Invitees are the most common source of workplace violence. Invitees range from professional services clients, to retail customers, to health services patients. They can also include vendors and contractors, and janitorial services personnel. Basically, all of the people your employees meet with, or serve, during the course of their workday, regardless of the location.

While there are some general strategies, such as de-escalation, that will help with overall safety from invitee violence, California requires you to train your staff on strategies to avoid physical harm that are specific to the safety risks your employees face. Determining the best fit for those strategies requires evaluating how your employees interact with those invitees.

Let’s say you operate a dental clinic. I’ve chosen this example in part because dental clinics typically have higher percentages of female employees, who are at a 5xs greater risk of being victimized in a non-fatal assault severe enough to cause them to miss work from being attacked.

Invitees to the dental practice can include patients, and patients’ family members, suppliers, vendors, and repair and maintenance personnel.

Patients and patient family members can become emotional, angry, and even violent over their perceptions regarding quality of care and the costs of services. They can also run reactions to anesthesia and other medications that can lead to abusive behavior and even sexual assault.

Here are some strategies to avoid physical harm that you should consider training your employees in to address invitee sourced violence.

Ways to communicate to others in the workplace when feeling concerned for your safety. This is a critical strategy to implement, especially since your employees are somewhat isolated from other staff when they’re working with a patient.

Providing training in exit strategies since there are obstacles in treatment spaces, such as dental chairs, and equipment, that can lead to your staff being trapped by an invitee.

De-escalation is also an important strategy to incorporate. However, de-escalation requires recognizing when a situation can be de-escalated. However, violence is not linear. It can occur at any point with or without warning. So de-escalation is not always an option.

Most attacks are over and done within 7 seconds. That doesn’t leave a lot of time.

The easy proximity to sharp instruments that can be used as a weapon, means that your staff will need to be trained in taking away an attacker’s initial advantage from a sudden attack by changing the dynamics of that attack, and even potentially self-defense including against a weapon.

And employees should be trained in parking lot safety and the buddy system since your staff can be susceptible to invitee violence in the parking lot at the start of, and the end of the workday, as well as lunch hour too.

Community Violence

Employers need to prepare employees to avoid physical harm from community violence. Drug addiction, mental health issues, homelessness, and other community factors are driving community violence. Community violence can even come from non-violent actions such as retail theft, copper theft, catalytic converter theft, which can turn violent when the person engaging in the crime feels at risk of getting caught. 

Robbery, sexual assault, and even murder can occur at workplaces due to community violence.

Community violence can occur at any time of day, but the threat of that type of violence rises in the late afternoon and early evening when employees typically are finishing up their day. It can also be a risk to employees who arrive early in the morning while it’s still dark outside.

Parking lot safety is the most important strategy to train employees when dealing with community violence. Parking lots are the 3rd most common source for violent crimes. 

In addition, employers should train employees in approaches to deal with members of the public who enter the place of business who may be looking to grab a pocketbook and run, or rob the location even if the organization doesn’t handle cash.

Employees should also be trained on what to do when they arrive at work, and when they leave work, to recognize and avoid potential safety threats. 

Safety Threats from Personal Connections to Your Employees 

Current and former partners of employees, as well as their family members and friends, can pose a safety hazard to your employees.

Domestic violence can spill over into the workplace, because someone personally connected to your employee knows where she works, the type of car she drives, and her work schedule.

Making the workplace an easy location to find her. Even if she ended the relationship. As a result, domestic violence related incidents account for slightly more than 1/4 of all workplace violence assaults.

This is especially true for female employees, as women experience higher levels of violence from personal connections than do men. Some studies have shown that 1 out of 3 women will experience a physical assault or other violence from someone she was involved with.

Strategies to avoid physical harm from this type of workplace violence should include how to communicate safety threats from personal connections to employers so that co-workers can be notified to keep an eye out for that person appearing at the workplace.

Implementing the buddy system including providing escorts to employees at risk from violence from personal connections since there is safety in numbers.

These types of attacks typically occur in the parking lot of the workplace, or in the front reception area, so parking lot safety and reception area safety should be part of the training in strategies to avoid physical harm.

Complying with California law and keeping your employees safer means not just creating  a prevention plan, but implementing, and maintaining it too. My book the California Workplace Violence Prevention Manual can help you do that.  You can also schedule a free consultation to discuss ways that I can help you to implement your workplace prevention program.