...Workplace violence is present in every nook and cranny of corporate America, affecting millions of Americans every year. Workplace violence is defined by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, OSHA, as any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide. In 2011, there were over 2 two million reports and claims of workplace violence, with 458 being homicides1. Workplace violence is at the forefront of everyone’s mind when a breaking news story is broadcast on the evening news, such as the recent shootings in Santa Cruz, California by a disgruntled ex-cop, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, but workplace violence can strike anywhere and at any time, and is a major concern for employers and employees across America. There are different types of workplace violence, which can be categorized as follows: (1)violence by outsiders or nonemployees, usually in the attempt of a crime, such as robbery or shoplifting, (2)violence by a customer or a client, such as a student or a patient, (3)violence by employees and former employees, and (4)violence by domestic partners, such as boyfriends/girlfriends and husbands/wives. Such categorization can help in coming up with ways to prevent workplace violence since each type of violence requires a different approach to prevention, and...
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...Workplace Violence Case Study Walaa Essam, Group 52F ESLSCA Business School Workplace Violence Case Study Introduction This case study addresses the problem of workplace violence by analyzing two actual incidents which took place at two renowned multinational firms, which are “DaimlerChrysler’s Toledo, Ohio, assembly plant” and “Lockheed Martin”. The purpose of this study is to help finding a useful managerial tool to decrease the potential for future workplace violence that may lead to loss of life and unnecessary monetary loss. Managers are not necessarily equipped to develop appropriate measures to effectively deal with violent issues. Given the proper tool, managers can often work wonders. But we first need to look at how we define the problem of workplace violence. Generally, people think of workplace violence solely in the context of physical assaults or homicides. Many mental health professionals consider such a definition too narrow, and instead define workplace violence more broadly, such as "any verbal or physical assault or any violence that occurs in the workplace even if its source is not related to the work environment or any abusive, threatening, intimidating, or assaulting conduct against a co-worker whether physical or verbal. Such conduct can be seen in the form of shaking fists, throwing objects, destroying company property, written or verbal threats, swearing, insults, condescending language, hitting, shoving, pushing, kicking...
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...Shavonna Williams 11/17/2014 When Will Workplace Violence End? Workplace violence is an occupational threat and danger for many employees in today’s society. Every year there are millions of occurrences of workplace violence in America, this issue is being displayed all over. The attention has been centered on a few horrific incidents including that of Matthew Beck an accountant employed with the Connecticut State Lottery who shot and killed four Executive bosses at work one morning. Compared to the overall majority of occurrences this incident only indicates a tiny example of a growing problem. Time and again, workplace violence is viewed as part of the job and rarely, anything is done to abolish it. The key to these troubles are based on addressing the establishment’s structural issues, rather than focusing the blame towards employees for threats and dangers that they rarely are ever responsible for generating. What could make an employee reach such explosive levels to commit violent acts at a workplace? On March 6, 1998 Matthew Beck walked into his workplace opening fire on his subordinates, but it seemed that prior to this horrific day Matthew lived an all around normal life. For eight years he worked for the Connecticut State Lottery. Employees attested that he was a great co-worker and one of the victims described Beck as a hard-working employee. He got along well with others and was a hard-working employee. According to an article...
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...Problem definition: "Workplace violence" it is violence against coworkers at workplace that can range from verbal abuse to physical assault, and ending by victims and or committing suicide. Such violence prompted the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to label workplace violence a “national epidemic”. Justification of the problem: It is mainly due to job related causes leading to committing such violence at workplace, some other reasons might be included, like managers lack of awareness to at-risk employees, failure of security measures, and absences of antiviolence policy at workplace. List of alternatives: 1. Providing effective security systems at workplace. 2. Regular employees orientation on antiviolence polices at workplace and the proper reporting system 3. Manager awareness training of at-risk employees. Alternatives evaluation: 1. Providing an effective security system at workplace: Security systems are very crucial at workplace and must be installed, like metal detectors and surveillance cameras, as it can easily detect weapons and prohibit its availability in the workplace, also monitoring every part of the working plant or facility, as it gives a chance for a proper interference of the security forces before the action takes place or goes more aggressive. 2. Regular employees orientation on antiviolence polices at workplace and the proper reporting system: As violence at workplace is increasing and being considered...
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...Violence in the Workplace When discussing violence in the workplace, it is often thought of in the context of supervisory bullying; however in recent years, it has come to light that it is increasingly present on a peer basis. Bullying in the workforce can be in many different forms, such as, verbal, physical, and psychological. Certain employment situations are more at risk than others for critical incidents. According to Kondrasuk et al (2001), employees who, during the course of their employment, often interact with people are more at risk if they have a history of committing violence. Examples include “police officers, nursing home care givers, daycare attendants, or housing inspectors” (p.187). The article I chose to read entitled, Case study in threats of workplace violence from a non-supervisory basis, looks at the legal and ethical issues of workers bringing weapons to work and also the psychological effects it has on them and the rest of the workforce. It also offers some proactive solution recommendations. The case study itself is focused on a female employee threatening a male co-worker, however it is noted that in most cases it is usually male against female. The female was one of the least productive workers within the company and her co-worker was one of the most productive workers and was even set to become a partner. The female carried a gun in her purse to work as she would often work late and she wanted protection when she walked alone to her...
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...Grand Canyon University Predicting work place aggression against nurses in all hospitals NRS-433V 1/27/2012 Workplace violence (WPV) towards nurses is occurring more worldwide and in the United States WPV is becoming a major killer. Australia’s health care industry has been known to be the most violent. The workplace violence occurs in all areas of the hospital including the ED and mental health department and the health care setting seems to be more prone to WPV. Some examples of WPV are physical assault, bullying, verbal abuse, and different forms of harassment. In this study the researcher focuses on the perpetrator and the behaviors that might indicate the occurrence of workplace violence. The researcher also addresses skills that a nurse may use to help predict the possibility of WPV. Having these skills allows the nurse to respond to a situation early and possibly de-escalate the episode. The study occurred in a non-teaching hospital, 332 nurses in all areas ED, surgical, mental, pediatric, medical, and maternity were asked to participate in the study. The approval was obtained through the ethics committee in the case study hospital and university. The nurses received a letter stating what the study was about, a survey, and an interview consent card, if the nurse wanted to participate they returned the interview consent card. About 35 nurses agreed to be interviewed; they had to give written consent before completing the survey or the interview. The benefits...
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...people. In today’s society there has been more and more acts of workplace violence that are being highlighted in the news and media. Workplace violence is becoming one of the most talked about topics in organizational behavior. According to Nelson and Quick, “Organizational behavior is the study of individual behavior and group dynamics in an organization.” From this, one can see how any form of violence in a workplace can effect an organization and make one question the overall ethics and morals of the business and how workplace violence is a major topic in organizational behavior. In order to better understand workplace violence, our group decided to take a look at exactly how often work place violence occurs, past example of workplace violence, and how one might prepare themselves on preventing it at one’s job. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2012) “Workplace violence is defined as nonfatal violence (rape/sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault) against employed persons age 16 or older that occurred while they were at work or on duty”. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) gathers statistics on violent criminalities against people in the workplace. “Attempts are included with completed victimizations” (BJS 2012). Between 2005 and 2009: Law enforcement officers, security guards, and bartenders had the highest rates of nonfatal workplace violence. Workplace violence accounted for 15% of nonfatal violent crime against persons age...
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...Louis Nuzzolese Technical Writing Dr. Andel 5/4/15 Workplace Violence Since the time we were born we are taught to lookout for the dangers of the world. We are also told the world we live in is an extremely violent place, and to be constantly aware of our surroundings. Everyone knows that at night some neighborhoods are especially violent and dangerous, thus we restrain from going out when it gets late. Everyone knows that you should be careful with people you’re not familiar with for these people may turn out to be treacherous and brutal. The focus of this paper will be homicide in the workplace. Homicide in the workplace is the second leading cause of work related death. We will be specifically covering the violence committed by employees and former employees directed towards coworkers, managers and supervisors. In the last few years much attention is drawn to a new kind of violence. No violence is new violence, it just hasn’t been seen much for a long time. This “new” type of violence that has just recently surfaced is workplace violence. Just as the name suggests, workplace violence happens while at the workplace and it can be a variety of things. This violence ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide. It can affect and involve employees, clients, customers and visitors (USA).” Experts on occupational violence agree that workplace violence prevention programs work wonders. However, these types of programs only get results if a...
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...Workplace Violence According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) Workplace Violence is any act in which a person is abused, threatened, intimidated or assaulted in his or her employment (OSHA Factsheet, 2002). Workplace violence includes threatening behavior such as shaking fists, destroying property or throwing objects. It also consists of any expression of intent to inflict harm. It can occur at the workplace or outside the workplace. It can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and homicides, which is one of the leading causes of job-related deaths. Workplace Violence remains to be a major worry and recently the concern has grown due to several circumstances that have taken place. An assault or threat of an assault directed toward a worker on duty falls under the category of workplace violence. There are several issues that can cause workplace violence which include angered former employees, customers who feel wronged, stressed out employees or a conflict between co-workers can elevate to the point of a violent altercation in the office. Personal life does spill over into the workplace, and sometimes those personal issues present themselves at the office with dangerous consequences. Violence directed at employees has a great effect on human resource employees rather than any other kind of workplace violence. Since the manager or supervisor is the individual who usually informs employees that they are being terminated...
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...Problem Definition This case is about violence against coworkers. It occurs at the workplace and it is listed as one of the leading causes of job-related deaths. However it manifests itself, workplace violence is a growing concern for employers and employees nationwide. Problem Justification There is no specific reason where I can determine in both listed cases why the violence occurred in the workplace, but there are several reasons that can be listed generally that causes such a behavior. Work and life Stress: As much as companies attempt to dictate this, employees such as "Myles Meyer" do not leave their personal issues at the door. Stress, of a workplace and personal nature, can cause an employee to snap and lash out at whoever the perceived enemy is. Overworking employees can create a hostile work environment, and if the employee is also battling personal issues, the combination can have disastrous and deadly, results as it is shown in the case. Lack of Pre-employment Screening: Companies that do not conduct thorough background screenings on potential employees run the risk of hiring someone who could be prone to violence, or has a violent past. Although many companies are using psychological and psychometric tests during the hiring process in an attempt to weed out the potentially violent candidates, the test is not full-proof and should not be substituted for a thorough background check, but it is used as an indicator and minimizes any risk in the future...
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...Violence towards Nurses in the Health Care Sector We have all heard before of the abuse and violence that happen in nursing homes; but what we tend to hear more about is how nurses are abusing patients, those being patients that are older, disabled and coming closer to the end of their life span. Patients sometimes receive such negative abuse from nurses, this consists of physical abuse which is defined as any action with the intention to cause any physical or bodily harm to someone; for example this would include a nurse hitting or slapping a patient or even pushing them around. You often hear about nurses neglecting their patients, this is a deliberate action where nurses deprive the patients of what they need, this includes a nurse that purposely withholds a patient from eating, drinking or giving them their medication ("Abuse in Canada's Nursing Homes", 2012). It’s quite sad to see how this action takes place in nursing homes; a nursing home is a place for the elderly to go to because they can no longer take care of themselves and they need the assistance in their day to day activities. The nurses in long-term care facilities are there to provide residents with the care that they need and require, as they cannot do it themselves. Patients will often receive mental abuse from staff, that is, an act with the intention to cause any emotional harm to someone ("Abuse in Canada's Nursing Homes", 2012). You often hear about nurses yelling or threatening patients; this seems hard...
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...workplace Workplace Violence On Wednesday, January 26, 2005, 54-year-old Myles Meyers walked into DaimlerChrysler’s Toledo, Ohio, Assembly plant holding a double-barreled shotgun under his coat. Myers, a Jeep repairman, approached Yiesha Martin, a 27-year-old stock supervisor and stated his intentions. He was there to murder three supervisors: Mike Toney, 45, Roy Thacker, 50, and Carrie Woggerman, 24. Afterwards, he said, he would turn the gun on himself. “I was shaking and I started to cry,” said Martin. Meyers told her not to cry and to page Toney. Although he was usually eating lunch at his desk around this time, Toney was busy dealing with a problem on the production line. On Martin’s second attempt, Toney responded. Thacker, however, was the first of Meyer’s intended victims to approach the former employee. When Thacker asked Meyers why he was at the office, “[Meyers] turned from the partition and just shot him,” Martin recalled. “I just saw the shells go. He reloaded in front of me.” Martin ran, grabbing a radio in the process. As she ran away, calling into her radio for help, she heard another gunshot. Mike Toney had just arrived and was now the second victim. Carrie Woggerman was able to flee after the first shot, but Paul Medlen, 41, while attempting to come to the aid of Toney, was shot in the chest by Meyers just before Meyers turned the gun on himself, taking his own life. Of the three employees shot by Meyers, two survived. Unfortunately, Thacker died from...
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...Violence in the Workplace When we think of violence in the workplace we think of mass shootings and physical assault. What we don’t think of is that workplace violence encompasses many more aspects, a few examples include verbal abuse, intimidation, perceived threats, and an overall hostile workplace atmosphere. The article I used was “Preventing Violence by Detoxifying the Workplace”. It provides an example of an employee shooting their supervisors. However, I will also point out other aspects from the article that contributed to the climate of the working environment as pointed out by the employees. The article depicts an information technology employee, who had been reprimanded for missing a deadline, who subsequently then shot and killed two of his supervisors and wounded another before taking his own life. We sometimes hear stories of workplace shootings and question what would make a person go to such an extreme as to shoot fellow coworkers. We typically hear that they were mentally unstable or they had a bad home life but not often do we hear that it may have been a result of the working environment. The company is Southern California Edison (SCE), an electric utility company. After the shooting they subsequently hired an outside consultant in the hope of uncovering what issues may have led to their employee shooting his supervisors. The consultant conducted interviews which included group and individual meeting with 725 employees. The findings of the review showed...
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...Abd el Rahman Afify Egifix Medical GDGB15 Workplace violence 1. Definitions of work place violence There is No single, uniform definition for workplace violence so far exists. Different relevant institutions and researchers have suggested several definitions and classifications. The terms used also differ. 1.1. The World Health Organisation (WHO) uses a broader definition and defines workplace violence as ‘intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community that either results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in, injury, death, psychological harm, wrong development or deprivation’. 1. ------------------------------------------------- Justification of the Definition * Violence is intentional; the definition excludes unintentional incidents. * Violence is related to the health or well-being of individuals. According to WHO, certain behaviours may be regarded by some people as acceptable cultural practices, but are considered violent acts with important health implications for the individual. * It includes acts arising out of power relations, including threats and intimidation. * It opens the field of the consequences of violence to results that transcend damage and death and include psychological harm, deprivation and wrong development. * The definition implicitly includes all acts of violence, public and private, reactive or proactive. ...
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...Workplace Violence: “Not Just A Shooting!” Leadership and Organization Behavior BUS 520 20 May 2011 Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………3 Introduction…………………………………………………………………..4 Summary, Article 1, Bullying in the 21st Century..….………………………5 Summary, Article 2, Intimate Partner Violence & Its Effects at Work..…….6 Summary, Article 3, Gossip – A Form of Workplace Violence (II)...……….7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...8 Recommendation…………………………………………………………..8-9 Reference……………………………………………………………………10 Appendix, All three Articles..……………………………………………….11 ABSTRACT When we think of workplace violence, we generally think of that employee who goes into a business and shoots up the place; however today workplace violence can come in many forms! Bullying, Intimate Partner Violence and Gossip are just a few areas addressed in this paper. They say one out of every six violent crimes occurs in the workplace. No organization, regardless of size or type of business, is immune to workplace violence. Workplace violence is a daily occurrence for many people in today’s society and needs more attention other than when it reaches the news. “Far more frequent than killing rampages at the office are cases of workplace bullying and workplace assault. Employment experts say stopping these dangerous situations early can prevent problems from spiraling out of control or turning deadly (http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-23/living/workplace...
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