2 Ways to Reduce Workplace Violence

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed within this article are not intended to be presented as the views of the author’s employer or portrayed as any legal advice or any official views or policies as held by the U.S. Army, any other government agency or office, any public or private organization, or any other individual. ?

This article is not being released in any official capacity by the U.S. Government; nor does it constitute an official Inspector General report of findings or recommendations. ?

Greatest Asset; Biggest Risk

As time marches on, leaders throughout both the private and public sectors will be forced to adapt to the ever-changing world in which we live.?As technology continues to advance and new cyber threats emerge, security professionals must take action to quickly and accurately conduct threat, vulnerability, & risk analyses; revise our assessments of each of these accordingly; and update our security and emergency plans as needed in a continuous effort to keep us as prepared, secured , and safe as possible in the face of these threats.?

Despite our rapid technological advances and the ever-changing threat landscape, however, there is one constant variable throughout every industry that will remain to one degree or another: people. As long as there are people who are still working together alongside one another, the potential for violence in the workplace will exist; and, while people are unquestionably our greatest assets, they can also constitute our biggest risks...

Scary Statistics

Let’s go ahead and get these troublesome statistics out of the way now before we move on to the mitigation strategies that I’ve outlined below.?

According to OSHA Safety Training Institute reporting, over 2 million U.S. workers have reported that they have been the victim of workplace violence, and as many as 48% of?human resources professionals claim that their organizations have, at some point, experienced workplace violence. Here a few other numbers as reported by OSHA:

Research shows that the majority of those perpetrators of workplace violence are customers and clients, with healthcare and government workers taking the brunt of the abuse, but this article will focus on the one demographic of persons that a company or organization has the most influence over: the employee.

Financial Implications

Our primary goal and motivation in reducing workplace violence should always be, first and foremost, to protect our people.?However, we must also consider the severe financial damage that workplace violence can inflict on our organizations.

According to Nationwide , workplace violence incidents are costing businesses in the United States to suffer staggering losses of $130 billion annually due to loss of productivity, medical costs, and associated lawsuits.?A significant number of other sources show that number to be upwards of $170 billion dollars or more a year.

To put that number in perspective, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that cyber crime "only" cost U.S. companies $6.9 billion in 2021 (although many cybersecurity practitioners, certified financial investigators, and forensic accounting experts believe that number to be a gross underestimate due to the limited data available from non-reported ransomware-type of attacks or those unknown criminal acts involving digital currencies).?

Another source of reporting, the Council of Economic Advisers, The White House , estimates that the U.S. economy as a whole loses approximately $57 - $109 billion per year to harmful cyber activity - still significantly less than what is being reported as losses due to workplace violence.

The statistics shown below have been acquired from reporting by both the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Labor :

While not taking into account for the implications of operating in the interconnected, global market that we find ourselves in and realizing the fact that the cost of a single cyber attack can be even greater for an individual company than a single incidence of workplace violence could be; on the surface, it would appear that workplace violence is collectively costing U.S. businesses more than cyber crime is!

In light of the numbers, businesses simply can’t afford to not invest in active measures to ensure they are hiring and maintaining the right people for the job – and that investment should account for the fixed or variable expenses associated with paying for professional services to help them achieve that goal.

Adjusting Workforce Management Processes

So, how do we end the violence, protect our people, and stay safe??Well, sadly, we’re not likely to ever fully stop the plague of violence within our society or our places of business. However, here are two low-tech ways that employers can help mitigate the threats, vulnerabilities, and risks associated with workplace violence by an employee:

These practices can be achieved by hiring a credible background investigator or a well-recognized background screening company (aka a Consumer Reporting Agency - CRA) to execute background checks that are more comprehensive and typically have more accurate reporting results than many of the instant, online background check websites do.

Those same CRA professionals could be instrumental in setting up and implementing a continuous employee monitoring program for existing employees as well. Continuous monitoring is a practice that uses technology to regularly monitor employees and allows employers to be notified via real-time alerts if an employee is arrested, booked, or charged.

As useful as continuous monitoring may in fact be, there are often still legal concerns over its use, and it's still a reactionary approach to the problem at hand - preventing violence before it happens. We need somebody much closer to the front lines to observe employee behavior.

This is where companies and organizations can (and should) enlist the services of professionals skilled in areas such as organizational behavior, organizational psychology, human behavior threat analysis, personnel security, corporate security, situational awareness, behavioral interviewing, body language interpretation, deception detection, and/or behavioral pattern recognition in order to help them in this endeavor.

NOTE: All hiring practices, pre-employment screening or continuous monitoring practices, and/or employment-termination actions should be legally reviewed and audited for compliance with applicable federal, state, and local labor laws and fair practice regulations - including the rising passage of "ban-the-box" type legislation.

Staying Left-of-Bang!

Leaders in the workforce have a responsibility to make every effort to keep their employees, customers, and visitors safe.?This means that they must ensure that their organization learns how to identify indicators of violent behavior in their employee candidates and existing employees prior to violence erupting. Employers must be able to discern which candidates or employees may be prone to violence and take measures to prevent workplace violence before it occurs…

This concept is something that my pals & former colleagues, Situational Awareness Experts, and Human Behavior Threat Analysts Greg Williams and Brian Marren over there at Arcadia Cognerati (yes, you should go check them out when you've finished reading this!) would refer to as: "Staying Left-of-Bang!".

Essentially, you are conducting risk mitigation through means of calculating the likelihood for a threat to occur by understanding both your vulnerabilities and the baseline of your operating environment (more on baselines in a second), remaining situationally aware, recognizing pre-event indicators, conducting sense-making and problem-solving to deduce the most likely and/or most dangerous courses of action, predicting the probability of each, and then taking proactive measures to defend against, stop, avoid, or lessen that particular threat before it occurs. By doing so, you are giving yourself the gifts of both time and distance to further separate yourself from the danger that threat poses; thus, staying as far "Left-of-Bang!" as possible.

I learned from my engagements during combat operations that, by increasing the quality of my training, broadening the breadth & depth of my area knowledge, seeking out & being observant for early warning signs, applying predictive analysis, and being able to take preemptive actions to control or mitigate as many of the threats, vulnerabilities, & risks as possible before things went BANG!; I could greatly increase the probability of:

If asked to elaborate on this notion based on my combat experience, I would say it's analogous to the difference between reacting to contact after being caught off guard by an enemy ambush (i.e., abruptly shooting back after surprisingly being shot at by a bunch of angry guys with AK-47s and an RPG while you're just driving down the road in your bongo van, minding your own business, jammin' to some "Free Bird", and thinking about how good a cold beer and pizza would be) vs. obtaining valuable threat intelligence that warns of a pending ambush and then preparing for and executing a low-visibility raid against an enemy compound before they ever got out of bed to go set up the ambush site. I'd prefer the cold beer and pizza, but I'll take the latter over the first in this scenario any day of the week.

Proactively investing in the prevention of workplace violence as opposed to simply relying on a reactionary security or emergency response plan whenever violence suddenly erupts is paramount to any and all organizations and is undoubtedly a worthy investment that could very well save lives.

Behavioral Baselines

As part of my professional experiences as a Special Forces Operator, and later as an independent Security Consultant and Human Behavior Threat Analyst; I had to understand the principles of behavioral baselines and how they apply to people, places, and even things. ?

Once I can establish a baseline through continued surveillance or simply through observations and analysis, I incessantly look for anomalies manifested as either positive deviations (+ anomalies being behaviors or things that are added to the baseline when they usually aren’t present) and/or negative deviations (- anomalies being behaviors or things that are missing from the baseline that are normally present).

Of course, the longer I was able to surveil, observe, analyze, or interact with a subject; the more accurately and precisely I could determine the subject’s baseline and any behavioral changes to that baseline. However, even without prolonged surveillance or observation of a subject, there are some universal, asymmetrical cues that form a typical behavioral baseline of standard human behavior that can serve as an initial starting point for comparison & analysis in identifying baseline anomalies.

While any anomaly should be noted, action is not generally advisable based on a single anomaly without the presence of a strong enough indicator that violence is imminent (i.e., social media post advocating for violence, a declared threat, or an actual altercation). However, when I observe clusters of anomalies, or cues that usually consist of three or more anomalies, then I have to take action in order to address the situation or potential threat.

This is a relatively simple, yet hugely important, concept - I even accredit my ability to understand and implement these principles to keeping me alive in some sticky situations during those days when I was still wearing my Green Beret. (De Oppresso Liber!)

Applying this baseline methodology is also useful when screening applicants and monitoring existing employee behavior.

Applicant Red Flags

If an applicant possesses a cluster of the following warning signs or traits, then it is ill-advised to take on the risk of hiring them. Here is a list of things that hiring officials, staffing specialists, and recruiters should be wary of regarding applicants:

Integrity Above All Else

Integrity testing during the interviewing of an applicant is one such tool that may be available to organizations and can be useful in determining the veracity and viability of candidates for a specific position or even for existing employees being evaluated for promotions.

The three primary tests that have historically been used are the polygraph examination (aka lie-detector test), the Psychological Stress Evaluator (a machine used to detect stress in the voice), and the Personal Security Inventory (a written behavioral-risk test).

The use of these types of tests has oftentimes been controversial amongst security professionals based on concerns over the availability, cost, and even accuracy of such tests; and they are not always legal depending on the state or local laws governing the areas where the screening of the applicant is being done.?

What is generally agreed upon, however, is that if these tests are to be used, then qualified professionals must be the ones to administer and interpret them.?Unfortunately, the number of qualified personnel to administer these tests is often very limited within the private sector.

Deception Detection

The options for integrity-testing tools don't end there, though. Many Law Enforcement Officers, Intelligence Officers, Special Operations Forces, & Security Specialists are trained and proficient in interpreting body language and applying deception detection techniques that don't require any fancy equipment and are legal to employ no matter where you are.?

These techniques also utilize the understanding of baselines and the analysis of human kinesics, paralinguistics, observable biometrics, and behavioral cues; they rely on the fact that human behavior, aside from some specific cultural nuances, is generally shared and demonstrated by all.

I have successfully performed a variety of these low-tech techniques while operating in a great number of places around the world as well as in my day-to-day life, and I've found them to be quite advantageous.

Pre-Violence Indicators

Paul Harvey , a Leadership Consultant, author & contributor to a great many works on the subject of workplace violence, & member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) ; works with the model of "Perceptive Predictors of Aggression", which details how a person perceives triggering events and factors that may affect that person's propensity for committing an act of workplace violence.

According to Mr. Harvey, if an employee has what is referred to as a “hostile attribution style”, they will be more likely to attribute a problem at work to outside factors rather than looking inward or taking responsibility for their own shortcomings and are more prone to violence.?This hostile attribution style has been identified in nearly all perpetrators of workplace shootings and other serious violent acts.

Unfortunately, too many of the victims in those cases never saw what was coming for them... not because there weren't tells, but because they didn't necessarily know what they were looking at or for. They weren't able to see what the puzzle pieces were shaping into until it was too late.

Those identified as having this hostile attribution style can come from either of the sexes and all races, backgrounds, religions, and ages. As a result, we must not fall victim to any personal biases, preconceived notions, stereotypes, or even statistics about who may be more or less likely to commit violence. Instead, we must look for the presence of pre-violence indicators and common characteristics of violent people displayed over a period of time. Individuals with the hostile attribution style nearly always possess a variety of these traits:

The more of these indicators that are seen together as clusters, the more likely that individual is prone to resorting to violence during conflict. However, when viewed alone, these traits are not likely to have a significant increase in the chances for violence to erupt.

For example, a person who is an isolationist at work might simply be shy or introverted. An unstable family life might simply be the unfortunate result of one of the many divorces that happen every year in our society.?The victim of an assault might've just been because he was running his mouth to the wrong person at the bar one night. Finally, a recreational drug user may in fact be a stellar performer in the workplace and even be the peaceful stoner-type.?

Workplace Violence Spectrum

Global Behavioral Science Authority and Behavioral Coach, Dr. Michael Mantell, Ph.D. , has also designed a strategy for recognizing the potential for workplace violence as well as the need for intervention by using what he calls the “Workplace Violence Spectrum”.?

This strategy places employees within certain categories throughout the spectrum. The idea behind this concept is that in order for any intervention strategy to have a higher chance of success, one should identify where an employee falls within the spectrum and quickly perform an intervention as needed.?The five categories within the spectrum are as follows:

According to Dr. Mantell, immediate intervention is to begin with The Covert Employee.?This employee type must be directed through counseling, time off work, or discipline in order to resort to being a "Normal Employee".?

Stages of Workplace Violence

The U.S. Department of Labor has also established a means of categorizing workplace violence into progressive stages of behavior demonstrated by employees in what they refer to as the "Stages of Workplace Violence". This methodology, as seen below, demonstrates an escalation of violent behavior, culminating in the requirement for emergency responders to react to those behaviors seen in Stage 3:

Time for an Intervention

When the time comes to perform an intervention, the session should be approached with caution and personal safety, but they should also be framed as a positive action for all involved - the problem employee included. This increases the chances that the intervention will be more successful overall.

A small business owner, manager, or supervisor must show the workforce that there are consequences for misbehavior while at the same time showing the reward for positive behavior and productivity.?Being consistent and avoiding disparate treatment will serve to build trust, manage employee expectations, and help achieve conflict resolution that can benefit the entirety of an organization.

Under most circumstances, leaders would be well-served to incorporate the practice of progressive discipline for continued infractions (i.e., a verbal warning, written counseling, a series of progressively longer suspensions, and concluded with termination). It's important to keep in mind, though; that, while this progressive discipline technique generally works well for more isolated poor behaviors or minor infractions, those offenders who perform more serious, or even criminal offenses, require a more direct and consequential approach.

Therefore, it's imperative that all organizations adopt and/or enforce a zero-tolerance policy towards threatening or using violence against others. Any violence-related offenses should be addressed immediately, and the proper disciplinary actions are likely to be immediate employment termination and even the filing of criminal charges.?This unwelcome, dangerous, and violent behavior on the part of an employee is likely to get worse and escalate through the Workplace Violence Spectrum/Stages of Workplace Violence if left unchecked.

Final Thoughts

We all wake up in our own different and unique worlds with our own perspectives on life and society.?We can all have different viewpoints, belief systems, biases, cultures, moral standards, life experiences, goals, dreams for ourselves or our loved ones, and even fears or concerns too.?

Regardless of how different each of us may be as an individual, though; it is important to remember that research, observations, & studies into human behavior, violent crimes, & particularly violence prevention within the workplace have all shown us that there are some universal signs or behaviors that people project before violence rears its ugly head. ?

When armed with this knowledge and the skills to apply it, we can better recognize the potential for violence from certain applicants or existing employees in the workforce and be better prepared to stay"#LeftofBang" and far ahead of #workplaceviolence.

Stay alert and stay safe!