Workplace Violence

By Corwin Noble

With the war on terrorism and the conflicts in the Middle East we continue to focus our attention on the prevention of another terrorist attack that devastated our country on 9-11, but with that focus in many instances we have failed to comprehend and combat a problem which affects us weekly and sometimes daily somewhere in the United States and that is the threat of Workplace and School Violence. Hence this article Workplace Violence Prevention.

Such tragedies have become all too common in the workplace. Conditions such as “downsizing”, lay-offs, and workplace stress have contributed to this condition. Now with the incidents of school violence, this has only contributed to the condition and concerns of not only corporations, but now in our schools.

Noble Protective Services has responded to bomb threats, stalking of employees and protection of plants and businesses from employees who were discharged and posed a potential threat to employees and facilities.

But how can businesses and corporations look for and prepare for these types of incidents? We have seen that workplace violence can be broken down into three categories:

• Acts involving current or former employees.

• Acts involving relatives or someone that is known to an employee

• Acts involving crime unrelated to an employee.

The most common that we hear about in the media is acts involving current or former employees or acts involving relatives or someone who is known to an employee.

Let’s look at the first category. These are acts involving current or former employees. Many times an employee will give indicators before an act is committed. These indicators need to be identified and taken seriously by management and co-workers. Following are examples of indicators which we look for when called upon by a business or corporation in our threat analysis.