Violence At Workplace

Freshman Composition 112-10

May 1, 2008

Violence at Workplace

Traditionally, when employers have addressed worker health, safety, and security, they have been concerned about reducing workplace accidents, improving workers’ safety practices, and reducing health hazards at work. However, in the past decade, providing security for employees has become very important in a company, or any workplace. Notice that virtually all of these areas have significant human resource implications; heading the list of security concerns in workplace violence.

Worldwide violence in workplaces is increasing. For instance; in the United States, in a typical week in workplaces 25 employees are seriously injured and sometimes at least one is killed. A significant number of workplace fatalities involve attacks against workers such as police officers, taxi drivers, and convenience stock clerks. Often, these deaths occur during armed robbery attempts. However, in most of the remaining cases, the killer has some relationship with the workplace, such as a coworker, farmer employee, customer, and others. What has shocked many employers in a variety of industries has been the number of disgruntled employees or former employees who have resorted to violence, including homicide in the workplace, to deal with their anger and grievances. For example, the tragedy at Virginia Tech University illustrated the consequences of workplace violence.

There are a number of warning signs and characteristics of potential violent person at work. Any violent act can be committed in a workplace, such as, verbal threats, blaming others, and conflict with workmates, with consequences of intimidation, change of behavior, and upset over minor injustices respectively. A person with these signs and characteristics may cope for years until a trauma pushes the individual over the edge. A pro-found humiliation or rejection, the end of a marriage, the lost of a lawsuit, or termination from a...