For most people, this is a happy time of year. But for some, holiday stress can be a tipping point. Which leads me to ask you this: How many of your employees are trained in workplace violence prevention?
Violence in the workplace is not uncommon: in 2017, assaults resulted in 18,400 injuries and 458 fatalities, according to the National Safety Council. While healthcare workers, service providers and education workers report more violence than other industries, it can happen anywhere. Training to recognize signs of a workplace bully can help.
Many industries have also adopted a threat assessment process to prevent violence. The American National Standards Institute endorsed the use of such teams in colleges in 2010 and workplaces in 2011. What about your organization?
How it Works
The threat assessment process involves three functions: identify, assess, and manage. Threat assessment is different from the more established practice of violence-risk assessment, which attempts to predict an individual’s capacity to generally react to situations violently. Instead, threat assessment aims to interrupt people on a pathway to commit violence.
Forensic clinical psychologist Dewey Cornell, Ph.D., describes threat assessment for American Psychological Association in public health terms: prevention, not prediction:
“Just as seatbelts and speed limits prevent injuries without predicting who will crash a car, and restrictions on cigarette sales reduce lung cancer deaths without pinpointing who will get the disease, threat assessments aim to prevent violence without profiling potential attackers. We don’t intervene because we predict someone is dangerous, we want to intervene because they’re troubled or there’s conflict or people are worried about them. Prevention becomes a bonus or a secondary gain from dealing with the underlying issue.”
Three Step Approach
- Identify. Authorities identify threats. To do that, people need to know when, how, and where to report concerns.
- Assess. Gather and evaluate information from multiple sources to better understand where or not the person is planning violence. That could involve security professionals, supervisors, or human resources managers talking to the person of concern and his or her peers and supervisors, as well as looking to social media sites. Authorities may also analyze the subject’s current situation. They ask: Has the subject recently lost a job, gone through a divorce or filed for bankruptcy? How has he or she handled adversity in the past? Investigators ascertain whether or not the person of concern has a motive, a target and the organizational skills to carry out an attack. Can he or she get a weapon and use it?
- Manage. More often than not, an assessment reveals a manageable underlying issue such as bullying, anxiety or depression that mental health professionals are well trained to handle.
According to Cornell, “We found in case after case, with a systematic, careful approach focused on the problem that stimulated the threat, the threat can go away and the concern about violence diminishes. Every threat is really a symptom of a problem that someone can’t resolve.”
When this topic comes up in the organizations where I consult, we discuss the importance of leaders and managers to recognize the signs of a workplace bully and address issues before violence erupts.
What do you think? What is your approach to workplace violence prevention? I’d love to hear from you. You can call me at 561-582-6060, let’s talk. And as always, I can be reached here, or on LinkedIn.
