Putting an End to Workplace Violence

What does it take to create a safe environment for employees? Park Dietz and other experts and CSOs discuss how to head off a security department's worst nightmare: Workplace violence.

Domestic violence might seem out of place among other forms of workplace violenceit's often considered to be a problem that exists within the domain of an employee's personal lifebut arguments at home frequently overflow into the workplace. A woman staying with friends or in a shelter at night to escape an abusive relationship is still at her job from 9 to 5 every day, and her estranged spouse or boyfriend knows just where to find her.

The most recent statistics about workplace violence appear encouraging, but experts caution that they track only a small facet of the problem. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), workplace homicide decreased by about 5 percent from 2001 to 2002, the lowest level since 1992.

Unfortunately, the BLS stats might suggest to senior executives that the number of violent incidents has dropped, when in reality the risk at most corporations is in constant flux. Workplace homicide is just one way to benchmark the threat level in corporate America. Much harder to measure are environmental factors such as stress, conflict, fear over job security, organizational change and general uncertainty that all increase the likelihood of an incident occurring. And a company that tries to assess its risk by looking at the national averages is basing its evaluation on statistics that have little or no relevance for its own circumstances.

While homicides have decreased from 1980 to today, the next tier of violencerobbery, rape and aggravated assaulthas increased. And for more common problemsthreats, verbal abuse, harassment and intimidationthere is no national data. There are only the records of individual corporationsand few keep themto tell the tale.

Still, there are some important ways to recognize a volatile employee and keep violence at bay. Here are five tips for ensuring a safer workplace.1. Get Executive Buy-InHow do you begin to put a workplace violence prevention program in place? Whether you are following TAG's recommendations or designing a plan of your own, the first step is to get executive buy-in. Convincing management of the problem's urgency, however, can be challenging unless the company has recently experienced an incident itself or has witnessed an outbreak of media coverage on the issue. The best tack for the CSO, then, is to start gathering information about incidents that have occurred at the company (many of which the CEO may not even be aware).

At Boise Cascade, for example, Director of Corporate Security Jim Ashby has experienced a number of workplace violence incidents, "although neverknock on wooda big one," he says. He's had situations where shots were fired in the parking lot, where an employee received threatening packagesone had a little flag that popped up and said, "Boom. See how easy it would be to blow you up"as well as stalking and domestic violence.