Workplace violence is a critical issue for employers to deal with and one of the biggest mistakes that many organizations make is to remain in denial that they either have a problem, or one could develop in their workplace. How often, after a tragic violent incident, do people who are interviewed say something like “I knew he would do something like this” or “he always made me afraid.” Often those who are in the best position to recognize problem behavior from an individual are the employees who engage with them every day. They know something is wrong but keep quiet about their concerns. They expect that someone should be doing something about an issue but don’t know whether to report what they see, or are afraid to. This is not the employee’s fault. It is the fault of an insufficient or nonexistent policy regarding the reporting of aggressive behavior. Not reporting inappropriate aggression can stem from a number of reasons including but not limited to:

• Fear of repercussions from the individual in question
• Not knowing when a behavior is deemed unacceptable and must be reported
• Not knowing to whom or how to report the behavior
• No assurance that there will be a follow up by a supervisor

All of these reasons can be addressed with an effective workplace violence prevention policy that is enforced and is an employment compliance requirement. Workplace violence prevention policies must address inappropriate intimidation through language, gestures, direct and indirect threats, or any other aggressive conduct that instills fear into other employees. Furthermore, employees should be trained to recognize such behavior as unacceptable and require that the conduct be reported to supervisory personnel. Supervisory personnel also have to be trained in how to investigate such reports and follow up with those designated within the company to handle such matters.

Bullying is the simplest, and usually the beginning form of violence in the workplace. If bullies are allowed to intimidate using inappropriate behavior, they will soon get even more brazen in their tactics. If an employee uses intimidation and fear to influence others in the workplace they will often go undetected just because of the nature of their tactics. No one wants to upset them. The conduct continues and the perpetrator assumes that the conduct, since it is being tolerated, is acceptable. If the workplace violence prevention policy does not force action by those who are experiencing the behavior, then the bully becomes empowered, and in their own minds, become even more dangerous.

Denial is even more evident when ongoing conduct is finally reported, or a mildly violent incident occurs, and no action to investigate or correct the behavior is taken. This will assure that the bully will continue the intimidating behavior. Others may even mimic the aggression since it seems to be tolerated. Soon the behavior can take on a more violent form when people begin to fight back. Eventually the workplace becomes a hostile environment. No matter whom the aggressor is, the behavior must be addressed and stopped or consequences, including termination, should result. Don’t transfer the person out to another department hoping they will change their behavior.  Don’t promote them and don’t make excuses – correct the behavior.

Now, if termination does become necessary, that should be done carefully as well. Safe terminations will be another topic to be addressed in the future. For more information regarding workplace violence prevention, safe terminations, bullying prevention, employee training and other related topics check out the Workplace Violence Series on our website at www.imac-training.com

Technorati Tags: Bullying, Online Training, Safe Terminations, Workplace Violence, Workplace Violence Prevention

What types of conduct does your written workplace violence prevention policy define and include? If it is only limited to actual physical violence it will fall short of recent standards. Such standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA – see directive CPL 02-01-052 dated 9/8/11) and ASIS/SHRM’s Workplace Violence Prevention and Intervention – American National Standard document both define workplace violence with fairly broad language. In order for your policy to provide some hope of prevention, as well as a reasonable defense in court, the following types of activity and conduct must be addressed by the policy:

• Criminal activity within the workspace
• Customer /client / patient confrontations
• Personal partner abuse/ domestic violence spilling into the workspace
• Aggressive co-worker issues such as abusive emails, verbal threats, hostile intimidation, and any other unacceptable behavior that invokes fear in the workspace
• Bullying and Cyber-bullying

Much of this conduct is subject to assessment of ‘degree’, especially bullying, but your policy should give clear examples of what the unacceptable conduct could be. Absent written directives forbidding such behavior, often nobody is willing to recognize it as workplace violence related and therefore it goes unreported. This will not only assure its continuation, but will probably be interpreted as acceptance and lead to more drastic, or aggressive, conduct. If it seems like there might be some spillover into other policies governing employee conduct, like into Harassment Prevention Policy, so be it. You still want to address the unacceptable behavior, see that it is reported, and take action to stop it. If abusive or aggressive conduct is addressed by more than one policy, that’s fine.

To be effective the Workplace Violence Policy has to be understood by the workforce and the only method for achieving that is through training. This training has to be done at the employee level for all. Employees actually have to be considered your first line of reporting responsibility. They should learn the behavioral red flags and the reporting requirements expected. Training also has to be done for the supervisors who are going to be your second line of responsibility to investigate the issues. Then the Case Assessment Team should be given even more specific training as to how the policy is to be applied and enforced.

Workplace courtesy and safety should be a simple issue of applying those universal rules of behavior we all should have learned by the time we were 5 years old. It has however become a complicated issue with social and legal consequences for both the perpetrators and the companies/organizations that fail to control them.

Check out our whole Workplace Violence Prevention series of training courses at www.imac-training.com.

Technorati Tags: Bullying, OSHA, SHRM, Workplace Violence, Workplace Violence Prevention