As Economic Stress Rises, Violence Changes. Here's How.

I asked in a piece last week if you were ready for the inevitable increase in workplace violence due to rising stress levels from economic uncertainty. And I outlined some proactive steps you should take now to prepare your employees for dealing with people on edge. 

Was I being alarmist? No. The news that followed only reinforced what I’ve been seeing.  

This underlying change was captured succinctly in a headline from the Wall Street Journal, “Consumers and Businesses Send Distress Signal as Economic Fear Sets In”. The article’s quotes a building manager and part-time security guard, who “started getting spooked about three weeks ago, when talks of mass layoffs and higher prices began dominating conversations with friends and colleagues.”  

Attacks Without Warning.

Increased levels of stress and fear activate our “flight or fight” response. And that impacts the way workplace violence occurs. With heightened levels of stress, violence in the workplace is now much more likely to occur suddenly, and without warning. 

While stress and fear can cause workplace violence to materialize from any of the 4 source types of workplace violence, unless your organization is going through layoffs, it’s more likely now to occur from community, invitee, and employee personal connection (especially domestic violence) sourced violence than from co-worker violence. 

To better understand how community wide stress impacts the way that violence occurs, one need only look at New York City, where this week law enforcement identified a “sea change” in how violence occurs. For the first time ever, the number of assaults happening in the subway system, has surpassed the number of robberies. True, that’s not workplace violence, except for transit employees. But, it’s very reflective of what happens when stress levels rise across a community, as they have been in New York City.

And that rising level of fear and stress is not occurring in isolation. It’s spreading across the country to big cities and small towns alike. And that means any workplace is susceptible to this type of workplace violence.  

So today we’ll look at why training your employees in the right strategies to avoid physical harm from violence is the best way to keep them safe during times of economic stress.

Preventing workplace violence is different from preventing other workplace issues. You have to know how violence happens in order to do so effectively. And there’s no pound of cure if you get it wrong. The detrimental effects from a violent attack on your employees are long lasting both to your employees and to your organization.

California requires employers to train employees annually in strategies to avoid physical harm from the specific workplace violence safety hazards they face. Take the guesswork out of getting this requirement right especially during rising stress levels. Watch my free, convenient, training on demystifying strategies to avoid physical harm. 

Economic Stress and Workplace Violence 

Today’s economic uncertainty is threatening people’s ability to put food on the table, and to keep a roof over their family’s heads. And not because of poor workperformance. It’s because someone has branded those being let go as superflous. 

Said another way…useless. Harsh. But that’s how it feels to those being targeted. 

And for men, who commit the majority of workplace violence from all 4 source types, their self-esteem is directly tied to the work they do. Take that work away from a man, and impact his ability to provide for his family, and he feels lost and adrift.  

Security, safety, and freedom from harm, comprise one of the four basic human needs according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And we’ve entered a time period when the ability to meet those needs is lessening for a lot of people. 

Workplace Violence Prevention Shift 

The collective rise in stress and uncertainty requires a change in workplace violence prevention strategies. Your employees needs to be able to keep safe when dealiing with unpredictability and reactivity.

When it comes to California’s requirement that you must train your employees in strategies to avoid physical harm, a lot of folks, unfamiliar with the reactive nature of stress induced violence, would tell you to focus on de-escalation. That employees trained in de-escalation should be able to calm a tense situation before it turns violent.

And I’ve certainly used that skill to keep myself safe during 30 years of working as an investigator in some dangerous locations and situation. And I’ve taught many people how to use that skill effectively too.

But in today’s climate, that’s not going to cut it. 

Stress and fear induce reactivity. And that causes lashing out. So instead of hashing things out verbally, your employees are likely now to be physically attacked without a prior warning. 

To be “coldcocked”. Where an attacker throws a punch without saying a word.  

The hospital drama “The Pitt” captured this in a realistic way, when on the show, a stressed and angry patient, was seamingly de-escalated by the charge nurse. He then walked away and voluntarily left the hospital. Then without warning he walked up to the same charge nurse, who was outside on a smoke break, and hauled off and decked her without saying a word. 

Employees have to be trained in how to anticipate and protect themselves from this type of an unprovoked attack. Because that’s how workplace violence happens when economic stress and unpredictability impact a community. 

The Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm to Focus on Now 

Here’s what strategies your employees need to learn and to implement effectively to be safe in today’s climate: 

•  Situational awareness. This is the most important strategy to avoid physical harm. And it’s doubly so during a reactive time. The ability to read the environment around you and the people within it to recognize a potential safety threat early enough on to be able avoid it completely, or to develop an approach to minimize it, is absolutely the best way to avoid physical harm from violence. This allows your employees to reduce engagement with a safety hazard to the lowest possible level. Situational awareness ecompasses developing multiple skills. The ability to recognize safety hazards in advance to give them enough time to respond. The ability to quickly assess your options to avoid physcial harm including creating an exit strategy. And the ability to take action immediately. For situational awareness to work, it needs to happen automatically. It’s most effective when applied without thinking. Thinking causes paralysis by analysis and in this stressful climate anything that slows your response will lead to being physically harmed. Situational awareness works for all 4 source types of workplace violence, but is especially effective for avoiding physical harm from community, invitee, and employee personal connection sourced violence.
•  Changing the Dynamics of an Attack. Coldcocking someone is about the element of surprise. Catching someone when they’re unaware and when their guard down. Both figuratively and literally. Recognizing the potential for an attack using situational awareness creates the opportunity to take away the advantage that comes from a sneak attack. I’ve termed taking away that advantage, as changing the dynamics of an attack. It’s about forcing a attacker to recalibrate, and that recalibration creates opportunity for you to avoid physical harm. Changing the dynamics of an attack is situationally dependent, so there are many ways to do it. But the easiest way to explain it is simply when you recognize out of the corner of your eye (situational awareness) someone approaching you, and you turn and face that person with your hands up in a safe stance, you have literally taken away the ability to coldcock you. And that is the essence of changing the dynamics of an attack.
•  Self-defense. An emotionally driven attacker is not looking to fight. His intent is to harm you as quickly as possible. There’s no hesitation caused by doubt or questioning in his actions. He literally just launches his attack. And if he lands that first punch, chance are pretty good your ability to avoid physical harm from the attack is over. Under California law, your employees are lawfully allowed to act in self-defense and in defense of others. Self-defense is literally the last chance to avoid physical harm from violence once that attack is in full swing. And the point of self-defense is to avoid being harmed long enough to create the opportunity to exit safely. Self-defense should be as simple as possible, and it should work for anyone regardless of size or strength.

No one knows how long this period of higher levels of stress and fear will last. But, what we do know, is that it’s here and now, and its effects are far reaching. California employers are required to provide raining to your employees annually in strategies to avoid physical harm. Now might be the best time to do so. Schedule your free consultation and we’ll discuss the specific safety hazards your employees face, and the most effective strategies for them to avoid physical harm.