Approximately 1 million workers experience violent acts at work annually. Violence in the workplace is a major concern for employers especially given the 2016 mass shootings in Hesston, Kansas and at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Events like these illustrate that workplace violence can occur at any place and at any time. The obvious and most important threat it poses is to the health and safety of anyone caught in the path of violent co-workers or third parties. But, workplace violence can have many other cascading and negative effects such as reputational harm, and can result in costly lawsuits ranging from negligent hiring or supervision to OSHA citations. If violence occurs in your workplace, it is vital that employers have strong workplace violence policies in place to help prevent such violence from occurring and to be able to more effectively respond if and when it does occur. |
