Wherever there are people, there is the possibility of a violent situation. This is increasingly true in the workplace. In the United States 15 people are murdered each week. According to OSHA, workplace violence costs U.S. businesses more than $4 billion each year. In the 1980s and 1990s people became much more aware of cumulative trauma disorders and the importance of ergonomics, according to Allan Bishop, a loss prevention consultant with The Beacon Mutual Insurance Co., Rhode Island’s largest workers’ compensation insurer. “We’re going to be hearing more about workplace violence in this decade,” he says.
A violent act in a company has a major effect on employees. “Workers get extremely upset by violent situations at what they’ve always considered their ‘safe’ workplace,” says Bishop. Productivity drops and a company’s good reputation can be seriously tarnished, both with those who are witness to such an act, and those who hear about it.
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“It’s important that a company have a violence policy in place as part of a comprehensive employee safety program,” he says. One of the goals of Allan’s seminar is to help companies organize “threat assessment committees” that can help track situations that could ignite, and formulate ways to extinguish them. “Employees just feel better knowing what will and won’t be tolerated and that there is a formal policy in place,” he says.
For more information on “Violence in the Workplace” seminars, interested companies can contact Allan Bishop directly, at The Beacon Mutual Insurance Co., 886-4400, extension 407. The seminar is available free to Beacon policyholders.
