Achieving an actionable corporate workplace violence prevention programme

Abstract

The US Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration identifies recommendations within the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) General Duty Clause for establishing a safe and healthful workplace for all workers covered by the act. Employers that do not take reasonable steps to prevent or abate a recognised violence hazard in the workplace can be cited. While failure to implement various recommendations and guidelines provided by OSHA is not in itself a violation of the General Duty Clause, organisations that implement a workplace violence programme are providing defensible risk mitigation operations while enhancing the overall safety of their employees. Successful implementation of a workplace violence programme requires finesse and enhanced partnerships with multiple functional groups within the organisation. This paper provides proven steps to establish and operate a value-added corporate workplace violence programme that promotes identification and reporting of potential internal and external threats, ongoing evaluation and monitoring of threats, swift action to mitigate threats to the workplace, and actionable awareness, training and exercising components to provide employees with the necessary skills to detect, deter, respond to and recover from an actual workplace violence incident.