Workplace Violence Types: What is Your Risk?

Workplace violence falls into one of four categories (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health). Specific workplaces are at risk for different types of violence, so identifying the type your company is most at risk for can help with planning.

Type I: Criminal intent

In this kind of violent incident, the perpetrator has no legitimate relationship to the business or its employee(s). Rather, the violence is incidental to another crime, such as robbery, shoplifting, or trespassing. Acts of terrorism also fall into this category.

In 2014, 1 percent of workplace homicides were perpetrated by robbers. The “other/unspecified” category, with 27 percent of workplace homicides in that year, may also include instances of criminal intent.

Type II: Customer/client

When the violent person has a legitimate relationship with the business—for example, the person is a customer, client, patient, student, or inmate—and becomes violent while being served by the business, violence falls into this category.

A large portion of customer/client incidents occur in the healthcare industry, in settings such as nursing homes or psychiatric facilities; the victims are often patient caregivers. Police officers, prison staff, flight attendants, and teachers can also become victims of this kind of violence.

About 20 percent of all workplace homicides resulted from Type II violence in 2014, but this category accounts for a majority of nonfatal workplace violence incidents.

Your workplace may be at risk for Type II violence if your business involves dealing with individuals such as criminals or those who are mentally ill or individuals who are confined and under stress, such as airplane passengers who have been sitting on the tarmac or customers waiting in long lines for a store to open.

Type III: Worker-on-worker

The perpetrator of Type III violence is an employee or past employee of the business who attacks or threatens other employee(s) or past employee(s) in the workplace. Worker-on-worker fatalities accounted for approximately 15 percent of all workplace homicides in 2014.

All workplaces are at risk for this type of violence, but workplaces at higher risk include those that do not conduct a criminal background check as part of the hiring process, or are downsizing or otherwise reducing their workforce.

Type IV: Personal relationship

The perpetrator usually does not have a relationship with the business but has a personal relationship with the intended victim. This category includes victims of domestic violence who are assaulted or threatened while at work and accounted for about 7 percent of all workplace homicides in 2014.

This type of violence can occur in all workplaces but is most difficult to prevent in workplaces that are accessible to the public during business hours, such as retail businesses, and/or have only one location, making it impossible to transfer employees who are being threatened. Women are at higher risk of being victims of this type of violence than men.

Prevention Strategies-Hiring

The hiring process is a great place to begin in your protection program. Passed performance best indicates future prospects. Nepotism and inside hiring is a certain risk in today’s environment. Your hiring policy should reflect what you are seeking in a “qualified” applicant.

 

Recommended background checks include:

• Criminal record
• Sex offender registry
• Employment eligibility verification
• Professional reference checks, and
• Social Security checks.

 

Prevention Strategies-Workplace Practices:

• Don’t work alone late at night or early morning
• Call for a security escort if working late
• Carry a cellular phone
• Redesign work space to prevent entrapment
• Train staff in ways to diffuse violence
• Place curved mirrors at hallway intersections
• Maintain good lighting indoors and outdoors
• Prepare plan for consumers who “act out”
• Control access to employee work areas

 

Prevention-Policies and Procedures that Resist Failure of Imagination and Not Connecting the Dots

In most post-incident investigations involving workplace violence and domestic terror in retrospect, the excuse is, “we did not see it coming.” Even though there existed information that would have been an indicator of probable violent behavior for personal or political reasons. “We never expected that could have happened here” (failure of imagination). Marion Kaplan, Holocaust Historian and Author, suggested that normalcy bias (it’s not going to happen to me) was at work in the Jewish people’s perspective of events, and not leaving Germany when Hitler’s pogroms were progressively intensifying when he said, “They Expected the Worst – They Did Not Expect the Unthinkable.” We must think “outside the box” in planning, and resist under-reaction (“normalcy bias”) and overreaction (“worst-case thinking”) as both are cognitive flaws. This requires the leadership of highly skilled safety and security professionals with a plethora of experience. There is no greater axiom than, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Get outside help with an objective perspective!

 

When it comes to connecting the dots, you face the impossible until you have the following policy and procedure elements in place:

• Observation and secure reporting actions indicative of violent behavior
• Centralized and secure information conduit
• Incident management customized for the facility, community, or venue
• Interdisciplinary teams of skill professionals able to conduct analyses of incoming data, and
• Disposition of all data directed toward conclusion or further monitoring that achieve desired results.

 

To capture data that otherwise may be lost in gaps and disconnects, a comprehensive process tailored to the findings of a comprehensive threat, risk, and vulnerability study are prerequisite.
“In the field of observation chance favors the prepared mind”-Louis Pasture. “Knowledge comes from noticing resemblances and recurrences in the events that happen around us.” -Wilfred Trotter, godfather of neuroscience.

There is no rote or formulaic solution to facility safety and security. With that in mind we must be willing to do the “hard Labor of thinking” (Emerson), and employ what Solomon said, “a wise man has many counselors.” Strategies at large have an element that is focused on overwhelming the opposition’s resources. Trying to go it alone without the objectivity of outside help is bound to lead to oversights and mediocrity that can easily be exploited by perpetrators of lawlessness.