Workplace violence: Meaning, types and prevention

There are some topics you’ll hear about, and you’ll be like, “what is this one again?” Workplace violence is one topic that is, unfortunately, happening in the employment or labour market. Workplace violence doesn’t generate a lot of news like domestic violence, but it is still abuse that nobody wants.

Workplace violence can affect anyone. But certain factors can increase the risk of being a victim, such as gender, religion, and sexual orientation. Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of training on workplace violence prevention programs. It is also possible to prevent such abuse even with little effort. So let’s look at workplace violence’s meaning, its types, and how to prevent it.

Table of Content hide 1What is workplace violence? 2Types of workplace violence 2.11. Criminal intent 2.22. Customer/client 2.33. Worker-to-worker violence 2.44. Personal relationship 2.55. Ideological violence 3How to prevent workplace violence 3.1Do a background check on employees 3.2Establish a clear workplace violence policy 3.3Create an effective communication line 3.4Train employees to recognize warning signs 3.5Identify risk factors that could lead to violence 3.6Be security conscious 3.7Encourage employees to report any violent incident 4Workplace violence statistics

What is workplace violence?

According to osha.gov, workplace violence is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior at work. It is not limited to physical assault alone. Workplace violence can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide. It affects employees, clients, customers, and visitors. These are examples of examples of rumors, swearing, verbal abuse, pranks, arguments, property damage, vandalism, sabotage, pushing, theft, physical assaults, psychological trauma, anger-related incidents, rape, arson, and murder workplace violence.

Types of workplace violence

There are five types of workplace violence which shall be discussed below:

1. Criminal intent

The primary motive for criminal intent is theft. The culprit is not necessarily connected with the concerned organisation but still intends to steal from them.  Robbery, shoplifting, trespassing, and even terrorism fall into this category. The most common victims are bank workers who exchange cash, work late hours or work alone.

ALSO READ: How to optimise your LinkedIn profile to land your dream job

2. Customer/client

Here, the culprit is a customer or a client of an organisation who harasses the workers through attacks and threats during business services. The customer or client can be a patient, inmate, or student that becomes violent while being served by the victim (doctor, prison worker, waiter, receptionist, etc).

3. Worker-to-worker violence

The culprit is an employee or past employee of an organisation who attacks or threatens other employees or past employees. The motivating factor is often interpersonal or work-related conflicts, or losses and traumas. managers and supervisors are often perpetrators of this type of workplace violence.

4. Personal relationship

The culprit, in this case, does not have any connection with the company or organisation but has a relationship with an employee. This category includes victims of domestic violence who are often attacked by their partners or guardians at work. For instance, an ex-boyfriend repeatedly calls a receptionist’s office to threaten her and ask coworkers about her daily habits. In some cases, the victim’s co-workers may be attacked by the perpetrator if they try to intervene.

ASLO READ: 7 consumer non-durable jobs that pay well

5. Ideological violence

This is almost like criminal intent. the only difference is this ideological violence is directed at an organisation and its people for ideological, religious, or political reasons. The recent mass shootings in the United States and across the globe are typical examples of ideological violence. The violence is perpetrated by extremists and value-driven groups or individuals who feel justified by their beliefs.

How to prevent workplace violence

Here are 7 ways to prevent workplace violence:

Do a background check on employees

It all starts with the hiring process.  Conducting a thorough background check on potential employees to know if they have a violent past is very important. This is to ensure you don’t hire problems for yourself in the future.

Establish a clear workplace violence policy

Let your employees know what you think about workplace violence in your organisation. Harassment, bullying, and any other troubling behaviour at work will affect the performance of the employees. Creating a policy to prevent harassment is a crucial step in preventing the possibility of violence. It’s important to involve every level of your organisation including managers, employees, and executives. Make sure they all have access to the policy and understand them.

Create an effective communication line

If your employees have access to a workplace communication network, it can help them report any potential form of workplace violence. Make your employees believe that you’re there for them and they are safe with you. By creating an accessible communication line, it will help prevent or reduce incidences of workplace violence.

ALSO READ: 20 remote jobs students, employees may consider for extra income

Train employees to recognize warning signs

It’s important to create awareness about workplace violence for the employees so that they can recognise the signs. Being trained properly so that decisive action can be taken quickly gives an employee the confidence to respond in a controlled and responsible way to a violent incident.

Identify risk factors that could lead to violence

What are the potential risk factors that could lead to workplace violence? You should consider factors such as being understaffed, inadequate security, lack of communication, etc. When you’re able to identify these factors, it will help you know how to address them and prevent workplace violence.

Be security conscious

Make sure your organisation is well secure to prevent robbers and hoodlums from having access. You can reduce the risk of robbery and potential violence by keeping the number of assets at your facility to a minimum. For instance, you can use electronic devices to make financial transactions instead of keeping cash. Also, let authorised security operatives visit your workplace. Make sure your offices are well lit and always be alert to know when certain customers begin to act strangely

Encourage employees to report any violent incident

Establishing trust between you and your employees is a great way to prevent workplace violence. When you gain the trust of your employees and assure them that no retaliation will be made against anyone reporting acts of violence, they will be confident enough to open up to you.

Workplace violence statistics

According to Techjury, two million people become victims of workplace violence annually. Healthcare workers are most often affected with 50% of cases involving medics. Also, women report around 30,000 sexual assaults on the job. These are just reported cases. You can imagine the number of unreported cases.

The World Health Organization (WHO) projected the global prevalence of workplace violence as 12.7%. In Nigeria, there is a high prevalence of violence in the health care sector up to 88%. Bullying, harassment, and physical violence are more prevalent in the health sector than in any other sector, with 54.4% of such acts taking place in the hospital environment. In Northern Nigeria, the majority (86%) of female healthcare providers have experienced some form of violence in the workplace at the hands of mostly relatives to their patients (56.1%) followed by the patients themselves (29%).

Nurses have up to three times higher chances of being abused than others, according to research by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2016. These nurses face more violence and face all types of trauma, suffering, and life-altering events than any other healthcare worker.

ALSO READ: How to stand out in your job interview with no experience