Type 2 "Invitee" Workplace Violence is a Greater Risk to Employees than You Think. Here's Why.

Think workplace violence is only caused by “disgruntled” employees, or armed robbers hitting up convenience stores?

Think again.

California’s new workplace violence prevention law recognizes four source types of workplace violence. Despite public perceptions, employees’ safety risks can come from people your organization works with through the course of business.

California’s law defines “Type 2 violence,” as, “workplace violence directed at employees by customers, clients, patients, students, inmates, or visitors.”

 I refer to these people as “invitees”. As they’re invited by your organization to work with your employees. Invitees also includes vendors too. Regardless if invitees come to your workplace, or if your employees go to theirs, or to their homes, they can be a safety risk to your employees.

In this post, I’ll discuss the risks employees face from invitees, and why California employers should include the risk of violence from invitees when developing, and implementing a workplace violence prevention plan in compliance with the new law.

Safety Risks from Invitees

A six state study of attorneys found that 40% of those surveyed had been threatened or physically attacked. And the second most common source for these workplace violence threats were the attorneys own clients. 

And speaking of risks attorneys face from other invitees, how about conducting a deposition at your own office of a man your client accused of sexual molestation.

I provided workplace violence prevention training to a law firm dealing with just that situation. The emotions surrounding their case, and his alleged conduct, made him a safety risk to their staff. And the staff at another law firm I worked with felt threatened by their own client’s close relative whenever he visited their office.

Why Invitees Pose a Significant Safety Threat to Many Types of Organizations

It’s not just law firms that face the risk of invitee workplace violence. Most any organization can be targeted by invitee violence. A survey of small and medium sized businesses found that 90% of them believe workplace violence can happen to any business, in any industry, and that invitee violence is a reason for this broad based belief. 

Here’s why:

•  You can’t harden the target. Hardening the target is term for implementing a physical security screening process with metal detectors, bullet proof glass, and security camera monitoring. That doesn’t work with invitees. After all, you’ve invited them to work directly with your employees either at your location. And this is especially true when your employees are working at their location. As you have no control over their physical environment. And for most organizations, it’s simply not feasible to do so, either due to cost, or due to the need for your employees to be accessible.
•  They have easy access to employees in your parking lot. According to the FBI, parking lots are the second most common location across the country for assaults and murders. But, organizations need to make parking as convenient as possible for invitees. Usually near the entrance to a workplace. Because of this access, they can approach your employees in the parking lot, or on a walkway leading to the employee entrance before they even get inside.
•  Familiarity leads to lower vigilance. Our vigilance is heightened when we’re approached by a stranger. It’s part of our fight or flight programming. But, what about when we’re approached by a familiar face? We drop our guard. We just don’t expect violence from someone we’ve invited to be with us. Dropping our guard makes it easier for an invitee to trap an employee in an office, exam room, conference room, or bathroom, and then to attack.
•  Invitees have greater access to our workplaces and employees. Invitees are often allowed to proceed around a workplace without supervision. They can use the bathroom, or get coffee from the break room, without being accompanied by an employee. But, invitees freedom of movement also provides greater opportunity to attack an employee.
•  Emotions can run higher with those we know personally. When your employees provide health care, or other types of services to someone, emotions can boil over if there’s a negative outcome. A lawyer loses a case. A nurse’s patient deteriorates. A builder needs to charge more for unforeseen circumstances. Any of these situations can lead to an explosion of anger, and an attack.

What This Means For Your Workplace Violence Prevention Plan

For all of these reasons, regardless of any other violence source types, employers must consider violence from invitees as part of their workplace violence prevention plan.

That includes assessing how and where the safety risks from invitees can occur. And once potential workplace violence hazards are identified, California requires employers to determine ways to address those threats, and then to implement them to increase employee safety.

Employers must also develop training approaches to provide employees with strategies they can use to avoid physical harm from workplace violence. And strategies to avoid physical harm are dependent upon the source types of workplace violence hazards your employees face. 

And finally, as part of a workplace violence prevention plan, employers must create, and implement, a violence incident log. Within the log, employers must assess all violence incidents for the source types of the violence, including from invitees, and how those sources factored into the circumstances of the incident.

 Mike Corwin helps employers implement an effective workplace violence prevention program that keeps employees safer, and complies with the requirements of California’s new workplace violence prevention law.

Looking for a free resource to get started on developing the required workplace violence prevention program to comply with California's July 1, 2024 deadline? Here's my California workplace violence prevention checklist. Questions? Email me at [email protected]