The 4 Sources of Workplace Violence

Do you know what the four sources of workplace violence are?

Workplace violence incidents can devastate a small to mid-sized business. It can lead to higher staff turnover and absenteeism, lower morale and productivity, higher insurance premiums, and lower sales and revenue, as well as expose you to expensive litigation.

And they're more common than most people realize. According to a survey of HR professionals conducted in 2019, 50% of HR professionals reported that an act of workplace violence had occurred at their workplace.

But, not all workplace violence incidents originate from the same sources. In fact, there are 4 main sources of workplace violence: co-worker, invitee, community, and domestic violence.

In this post we’ll look at the four main sources of workplace violence, and whether your organization is at risk from them. Protecting your staff and organization from workplace violence and its after effects, starts with understanding the types of workplace violence.

Unless you understand where workplace violence originates, you and your organization will not be able to design and implement a workplace violence prevention strategy. And a staff that feels unsafe is less likely to remain with your organization. And your organization is not alone. 

In fact, 54% of workers think that their managers have not taken the appropriate steps to keep them safe on the job.

I help small and mid-size organizations reduce the risk of workplace violence. I provide assessments, training, and coaching in workplace violence prevention for businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies regarding internal complaint and investigation practices, premises security, internal layout and communications, situational awareness, de-escalation, changing the dynamics of an attack, and self-defense.

Want to protect your staff and your organization, but don't know where to begin? Click here to download my FREE workplace prevention checklist to help you get started keeping your staff and your organization safer. This easy to use checklist covers some basic steps you can take to reduce the risk of workplace violence from each of the four different sources covered in this piece.

For many people, workplace violence is synonymous with co-worker on co-worker violence. Remember how years back the phrase, "going postal" was used in conjunction with a workplace violence incident? And yes, co-worker on co-worker violence is one of the sources of workplace violence. But it is not even the most common source. 

Workplace Violence From Invitees

For many organizations, their greatest risk for workplace violence comes from an invitee. A business invitee can be a client, a patient, a customer, a vendor, or a walk-in member of the community who is at your work location as part of your regular business operation.

For a medical service provider, including a hospital, an urgent care clinic, or a doctor's office, it can be a patient. For a law firm, it can be a client, his family, or a party opponent, who is visiting your office for a deposition. 

It can be a customer at a restaurant, or a guest at a hotel. In fact, most businesses have some type of invitees.

If your organization services patients, clients, customers, the public, and has vendors who visit your location, you will need to approach work-violence prevention differently than those whose risk for violence comes from outsiders.

Many organizations have implemented some form of "hardening" of their physical infrastructure, i.e. controlling access points to make it more difficult for people to enter your facility. But, when it comes to invitees, "hardening" access control limited impact, because they are at your location by your invitation with the purpose of interacting with your staff.

Community Sourced Workplace Violence

If your organization and staff provide services to others while working outside of your physical location, such as caregivers or social workers who work with people in their homes, sales personnel that meet with clients in their locations, or has delivery drivers, you'll need to approach keeping them safe differently than you would for staff that works solely on your premises.

And your strategy for reducing the risk to your staff must include dealing not just with the risks from their own clients, but also from the community at large. As any staff operating out in the general community, must be aware of the community levels of violence and the risks that those produce.

Situational awareness and de-escalation training should play a major role in workplace violence prevention to reduce the risk of your staff being targeted by this type of violence.

For example, during my 30 plus years of working as a litigation investigator, I conducted witness interviews in neighborhoods with high levels of gang violence, drug usage, and other factors that can increase community violence.

And this is especially true today, as we have seen grievance based violence spike over the last three years in cities, and small towns, throughout our nation.

Co-Worker Sourced Workplace Violence

 We continue to regularly hear about co-worker on co-worker workplace violence. The mass shooting at a Walmart in Virginia carried out by a shift supervisor, and the shooting by a agriculture worker in California, are just two of those episodes in the past year.

Co-worker violence often has its roots in a workplace grievance that can involve bullying and other forms of harassment. Often the allegations of abusive behavior were reported to management. But, either the complaint never went anywhere, or the internal "investigation" was not conducted in a manner that instilled confidence in the complaining party or other staff.

Although it's not the case for every instance of co-worker sourced workplace violence, the way an organization handles a complaint, and makes a decision on disciplinary actions can prevent allegations of harassment and abuse from leading to violence.

Although once falling under worker's compensation claims, this type of violence is now leading to civil lawsuits and a civil liability that can result in millions of dollars in damage awards or jury findings. A large enough award can put an organization out of business or effect it's profitability for a long time to come.

Domestic Violence Sourced Workplace Violence

Homicide is the second leading cause of death for women in the workplace. And some years it even exceeds the number of vehicle related fatalities that are considered to be the number one cause of death for women in the workplace. And a large number of those homicides are carried out by family members, and current or former intimate partners, of the victim.

These killings take place at the workplace because the offender knows where the woman will be, even if she has moved out of their home, because she has to earn her paycheck. It's a fix point location that he can then stake out. 

Preventing this type of workplace violence takes a different approach from the other three types. Doing so requires solid internal organization communication to be alert to the risk, and using premises security as well as the buddy system.

Starting a workplace violence prevention program can feel overwhelming. Where do you begin? What do you need to focus on? And how do you ensure that it is effective? 

I have a FREE workplace violence checklist that you can use to begin the process of helping your organization and staff to be safe from workplace violence. You can download this free PDF checklist here.