Workplace Violence Warning Signs
N E W Y O R K, Dec. 27, 2000 -- If workers alert supervisors about strange behavior in fellow employees, they may be able to avoid what happened to the seven workers who were shot to death at their Wakefield, Mass., offices Tuesday, workplace experts say.
People often think shootings such as the one that occurred at Edgewater Technology happen because a person “just snaps,” but Steve Kaufer, the founder of the Workplace Violence Research Institute in Palm Springs, Calif., says that isn’t so: “There are red flags that lead up to an incident of workplace violence.”
Warning signals are apparent in two-thirds of the cases, agrees Dr. Theodore Feldmann, associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, in Kentucky. Defining workplace violence as any type of threat or violence occurring in a work environment, he wrote in a 1999 report: “No occupational setting is immune from workplace violence. Likewise, no individual is safe from this type of attack.”
Signs of Stress
Kaufer says people tend to display signs of stress that need to be addressed whether or not an employer believes they will lead to violence. Companies should train employees to look out for those changes in behavior that may indicate a co-worker is going through a difficult time, he says.
If a normally social employee starts withdrawing, or someone who comes in to work on time starts showing up late, that person may be stressed, Kaufer explains. “It doesn’t mean that the individual is going to come to work with a gun and injure someone,” he says. “But it does mean that the individual needs to be talked to and counseled to find out if there’s something the employer can do to assist them in whatever stress they’re going through.”
Reduced productivity, inconsistent work quality, strained co-worker relations, safety violations, depression and frequently blaming others are other characteristics managers should monitor in a potentially violent worker.
While many workers may want to avoid getting involved when they see these signs manifesting in a co-worker, it’s important to alert a supervisor or manager, particularly in larger companies where managers often do not have daily contact with an employee, Kaufer advises. Once employers have been made aware of the situation, their response should be “benevolent,” rather than punitive, he says, adding, “Try to get [the employee] either internal employee assistance help or outside mental health expertise to help them through whatever stress they’re going through.”
Preparing in Advance
Over 110,000 incidents involving workplace violence were reported in the U.S. in 1998, 750 of which led to death and cost employers $4.2 billion, according to researchers at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. This comes out to over $5 million per incident.
A 1992 survey by the Justice Department — the most recent figures available — reported that between 1987 and 1992 approximately 1 million people annually were assaulted while at work or on duty. Of those 1 million people, 615,160 were simple assaults, 264,174 were aggravated assaults, 79,109 robberies, and 13,068 rapes. Homicide is the second leading cause of fatal occupational injury in the US.
Kaufer says the number of workplace homicides have actually gone down in recent years, but he adds, “We’re seeing a higher level of low-level type of workplace violence — threats, harassment, intimidation.”
He points out that there is no profile of a typical workplace violence perpetrator.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources agency, instructs employers to have advance planning for workplace violence issues, stating, “The likelihood of a successful resolution is much greater if you have prepared ahead of time.”
In 1970, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act to assure “safe and healthful working conditions” for all workers, but offered employers no guidelines as to how to provide those. According to Larry Chavez, an institutional violence expert at Critical Incidents Associates in Sacramento, Calif., some federal agencies require workplace violence training, but there is no record of how many private employers do so. He says collecting such data would be extremely difficult because, “People are reluctant to talk about it. They are afraid to give [workplace violence issues] too much attention.”
Components of a Crisis Plan
ABCNEWS.com's Ephrat Livni contributed to this report.