Workplace Guardians Blog

Making the Case for a Workplace Violence Prevention Program

Many HR Directors and Security professionals are asked by their CEO’s “Why do we a need a workplace violence prevention program? How do we justify the cost of policy development, training and security improvements? Besides, nothing will happen here.”

It’s not surprising that the cost of implementing these types of programs would raise questions, especially in light of the idea that you are preparing for an event that may never happen, such as an active shooter.

In reality, most workplaces can expect to be affected at some point by lower level acts of workplace violence like bullying, fistfights, sabotage or threatening behaviors; and while these are seemingly less severe than an active shooter event, there are nonetheless serious financials risks that the organization could face in the aftermath.

Blog #3 of the series: Managing 4 Difficult Workplace Behaviors

What are Aggressive Behaviors?

Aggressive behaviors generally violate some kind of organizational policy. These behaviors include sexual and physical harassment, threats, intimidation, vandalism, theft, and verbal assaults. They also include threats, stalking and harassment delivered via electronic and social media. These behaviors are disturbing, can negatively impact the mental or emotional well-being of employees, and they can damage the culture of the workplace.

Blog #2 of the series: Managing 4 Difficult Workplace Behaviors 

What are “Disruptive” Workplace Behaviors?

Disruptive workplace behaviors include (but are not limited to) attendance and performance issues, highly emotional and chaotic behaviors, heated outbursts, gross insubordination, lack of accountability for one’s inappropriate behavior, and lower level workplace bullying. When Disruptive behaviors are allowed to continue for any length of time in the work environment, the potential exists for co-workers, supervisors and even executives to feel “held hostage” by the individual and his/her problematic behavior.

How do “Disruptive” Behaviors affect the workplace?

The question of how to prepare an organization to prevent a potential act of workplace violence can be overwhelming for any HR or security professional and the knowing where to begin can certainly be daunting. As a starting point, we often recommend that our clients obtain a copy of the American National Standard, Workplace Violence Prevention and Intervention, co-published by the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

The American National Standard emphasizes the role of prevention in creating and maintaining a safe workplace and specifically looks at the role of policy, procedures, resources and safety protocols as being integral to preventing and responding to a workplace violence event. In fact, the American National Standard is considered the “gold standard” in terms of defining both the problem and scope of workplace violence, as well as outlining practical steps that organizations can take to address threats of violence and violent acts in the workplace. This publication is available from ASIS 

Blog #1 of the series: Managing 4 Difficult Workplace Behaviors

What are “Annoying” employee behaviors?

Annoying behaviors in the workplace are just that – behaviors that may seem annoying, distracting and downright irritating, to the point of interfering with other employees’ ability to get their jobs done efficiently and in a productive atmosphere. Examples of Annoying behaviors can include things like difficulties with communication, excessive chatter about personal and non-work topics, attention seeking behaviors, and emotional and behavioral immaturity.

These types of behaviors can obviously create problems, and while it may seem that they often do not “cross the line” with regard to policy violations or evidence decreased performance, they do create difficulties which can impact workplace culture and productivity.

Facing complaints of difficult workplace behaviors can be an uncomfortable, anxiety producing and daunting experience. Many HR professionals are charged with deciding if, when and how to intervene when workplace behaviors become problematic. Unfortunately, troubled, difficult, or disruptive behaviors don’t usually fade away on their own. In fact, left alone, they generally tend to get worse. We have even seen situations where aggressive and even dangerous behaviors are allowed to continue because the culture supports the behavior, or an organization’s leaders are unsure of the right course of action, or are afraid that any disciplinary action might actually escalate what appears to be a volatile situation.     

Originally posted on December 2, 2016

To be fair, I’ll tell you right now that this is not an anti-media rant. I’m actually a fan of most forms of media, and do believe they can be useful in raising interest and awareness about difficult topics, like workplace and school violence prevention. Of course, there can also be a downside from too much media attention.

The Problem with the Media’s Reporting of Workplace Violence

If you believe that participating in an active shooter drill is the single most important thing you can do for your organization’s workplace violence prevention program, I would say that your planning has been overly influenced by media reports.