Workplace violence, regardless of whether it is perpetrated by a male or female attacker, yields the same result: innocent lives are taken.
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A recent article in Security Magazine, titled “Patients Are People First”, starts with a grim statement: “Healthcare is one of the most violent professions in the private sector – the number of violent events in the healthcare workplace is on par with law enforcement and corrections.” According to Ryan Weber, the article’s writer, one of the causes of this spike in violence at healthcare facilities is the shift towards a focus on patient satisfaction, and the view of patients as customers, leading to a situation where: “… caretakers often forgo their own safety to produce results, creating a more unsafe work environment and potentially providing a lower level of care.”
A recent Rand Corporation report titled “Working Conditions in the United States” finds that that the American workplace is a stressful environment for most workers. Yet, despite the stress, the majority of those surveyed reported “…that their job met at least one definition of ‘meaningful’ always or most of the time.”
A recent Rand Corporation report titled “Working Conditions in the United States” finds that women reported verbal abuse, threats, and humiliating behavior at a slightly higher rate than men, but experienced a fivefold occurrence of unwanted sexual attention, compared to that reported by men.
Workplace violence incidents exact a huge toll on both employees and employers by impacting workers, co-workers, family members, companies, shareholders, clients, and communities. Not all industries and market sectors are equally susceptible to workplace violence. The following post sheds light on the risk of injury and death resulting from workplace violence – by industry/sector.
Sexual harassment exists everywhere people come into contact, including at work. Workplace sexual harassment creates a disruptive and harmful environment that hurts the target of the act in the first place, but also damages work ethics, morale, productivity and communication, thereby impacting a company far beyond the immediate circle of the harasser and the harassed.
Workplace violence incidents are on the rise. This increase in frequency exacts a huge toll on both employees and employers by impacting workers, co-workers, family members, companies, shareholders, clients, and communities. These incidents, affect physical and psychological wellbeing, productivity, morale, ethics, direct and indirect costs*, and, in some cases, the very survival of people and organizations.
About 20% of America’s workers were subjected to some form of verbal abuse, unwanted sexual attention, threats, or humiliating behavior at work in the past month or to physical violence, bullying or harassment, or sexual harassment at work in the past 12 months.
Dealing with workplace bullying situations is always a challenging task. There are, however, circumstances where the complexity and the challenges faced by the responsible authorities are even greater than usual.
According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, bullying is four times more common than sexual harassment or racial discrimination on the job. At the upcoming ASIS 2017, R3 Continuum’s Dr. George Vergolias, and TAL Global’s Oscar Villanueva will grab the troublesome phenomenon of Workplace Bullying by the horns, Explore how to define its psychological origins, how to identify it, and how to prevent it.
