Determining the Right Types of Violence Prevention Training for Your Employees

Under California’s new workplace violence prevention law, “employers shall provide employees with initial training when the plan is first established, and annually thereafter, on all of the following…strategies to avoid physical harm.”

There are many different strategies to avoid physical harm, so how do employers determine the right types of strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence to train their employees in?

In this piece, I offer a straight forward assessment process that employers can use to determine the most appropriate strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence, based upon the types of safety risks your employees face. 

California new workplace violence law has gone into effect. It requires employers to implement a workplace violence prevention program, including providing training employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence. 

I put together a free guide to help employers ensure that their violence prevention program is effective. It’s based on what I learned from 30+ years of conducting civil, criminal, and workplace investigations into real life violence incidents, as well as what I implemented in order to keep myself safe while working in some very dangerous places. I’ve helped employers implement these approaches into their workplace violence prevention programs for over a decade.  

 Getting Started with Determining the Right Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm from Workplace Violence

The best place to begin in determining the right strategies for your employees to avoid physical harm is with your employees.

In fact, California requires it. 

Employers must identify “effective procedures to obtain the active involvement of employees…in designing and implementing training.”

There’s two approaches you can use to develop this information through employee input:

• You can conduct interviews with employees who serve as a representative sample of the different types of work your employees perform.
• You can prepare a written survey for your employees to fill out.

Interviews typically provide greater insights than surveys do because of the ability to go deeper, but both approaches will work for this purpose.

You’ll want to cover what types of safety concerns they have as they go about their work, and based upon those safety concerns, what types of training do they think will be most beneficial to help keep them safe from physical harm.

This approach is especially beneficial for employers whose employees have not experienced any type of violent incidents that could be used as part of your assessment.

Using the Four Source Types of Workplace Violence to Identify Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm

As part of your interview or survey process you want to identify the four source types of workplace violence, and inquire of your employees as to their safety concerns regarding all four source types. 

Workplace violence typically arises from four different source types. Knowing which source types your employees are at risk of violence from, and how the violence from those types of sources typically occurs, can guide your choices of which strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence.

• Type 1 workplace violence is community based violence. People who your employees encounter during the course of their workday who may commit an act of violence. These can range from harassment from people in the community, such as from aggressive pan handlers, to sexual assault, and armed robbery. This type of violence can occur in the parking lot, in the workplace, and out in the community.
• Type 2 workplace violence is invitee violence. These are the clients, patients, customers, contractors, vendors, and other people that your employees interact with as part of their work. I use the term invitee because they are invited to work with your employees, and in your workplace. Invitee violence is the most common form of workplace violence.
• Type 3 workplace violence is co-worker violence. These are current and former co-workers, managers, and supervisors. This is the type of violence most people associate with the term workplace violence. Employers have the greatest ability to prevent this type of violence from leading to physical harm since each person is or was part of the organization.
• Type 4 workplace violence is employee private life violence. Violence caused by people, unrelated to work, who are personally known to your employee including domestic and family violence. This is the most common source of workplace violence injury for women in the workforce, and the most difficult to prevent.

By using employee input through interviews and surveys, and analyzing the source types of violence your employees face, you can determine the most relevant types of training in strategies to avoid physical harm to help ensure your employees safety.

Learn more about trainings in strategies to avoid physical harm.