IX. Summary of recommendations/suggestions for further research.

1. Public Awareness Campaign

A national campaign should be conducted to increase public awareness and knowledge concerning workplace violence issues.

Ideally, the educational effort should reflect a cooperative effort by government agencies, major corporations, unions, and advocacy groups. The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration would be well placed to play an initiating and coordinating role, bringing together constituents at the national level and designing the basic framework for the campaign. The goals of the effort would include:

* Educating the public, legislators, and policymakers about the scope and costs of workplace violence.

* Promoting local coalitions to become active in workplace violence and violenceprevention issues.

* Encouraging employers to adopt violence-prevention policies and plans.

* Enlisting major corporations and industry or employer associations in providing outreach and assistance to smaller employers.

* Providing information and a model approach for similar awareness efforts by state and local occupational safety agencies.

* Promoting a preventive approach by law enforcement agencies.

* Cataloguing and publicizing community resources that can assist employers and local police departments in violence prevention and crisis management.

* Developing public service announcements and websites that will promote awareness and violence-prevention planning.

* Appearances before Congress and state and local legislators to advocate appropriate laws and funding for workplace violence prevention programs.

2. Workplace Policies and Plans

Employers should adopt clear no-threats and no-violence policies and prevention plans.

Violence-prevention policies and planning are instrumental for employers to help meet their legal and ethical obligation to provide a safe environment for their workers. The best plans are based on a multidisciplinary model, drawing on the expertise of security officers, human resources managers, lawyers, mental health professionals, and others.

As well as adopting plans, employers should:

* Communicate the policy to employees at all levels of the company.

* Survey employees to get their ideas about the incidence of violence, possible risks, and suggested preventive measures.

* Give support to violence-prevention measures.

* Provide violence prevention training for managers, supervisors, and employees on a regular basis.

* Practice the plan.

* Provide physically secure work spaces and adopt staffing policies that will help keep employees safe on the job.

* Establish relations with police, social service and mental health providers, and other government and private agencies that can assist in threat assessment, threat management, and crisis management.

* Place workplace violence prevention and training on the agenda of chambers of commerce, industry and trade associations, and other employer organizations.

* Evaluate the workplace violence-prevention plan periodically or when workplace circumstances change or a violent event has occurred.

Beyond the specific policies and procedures spelled out in a violence prevention program, companies will be most successful if they create an atmosphere of fairness, trust, and cooperation between employees and management. Unions should be partners, not adversaries, in violence prevention.

When it comes to employee safety, businesses should cooperate, not compete. Sharing ideas and information about successful violence-prevention strategies, pooling resources to provide better training, and working together to raise public awareness will help all employers. In particular, larger corporations with greater resources should share plans and training resources with smaller firms and community organizations in an effort to extend violence prevention to small employers and lower-paid, lower-status workers.

3. Preventive Law Enforcement

Law enforcement agencies should adopt a preventive approach to violence in the workplace.

In recent decades, many police departments have changed attitudes and traditional practices in domestic violence cases, intervening earlier and paying increased attention to protecting the victim as well as arresting and prosecuting the abuser. A similar evolution can occur with workplace violence. Preventive measures include:

* Responding to and better documentation of minor workplace incidents or cases of threats and harassment that could lead to violence, rather than waiting for a serious offense to occur.

* Training officers in violence prevention, threat assessment, stalking and harassment laws, and other professional topics relevant to workplace violence.

* Establishing and maintaining two-way contact with employers, advising on anti-violence planning, and assisting in preparing for and managing potentially risky situations, such as carrying out layoffs or terminating a "problem" employee. Outreach efforts should be especially directed to smaller employers that do not have the resources to maintain their own security staff, employee assistance program, etc.

* Federal law enforcement agencies, state police, and large police departments should consider creating specialized units assigned to conduct threat assessments and work with employers on violence prevention. These units should also be available to provide training and assistance to departments in smaller communities.

4. Government's Role

Federal, state, and local occupational safety agencies should make workplace violence prevention a priority.

With OSHA taking the lead, government agencies can play a key role in improving, supporting and extending violence-prevention efforts by the Nation's private employers. In addition to promoting public awareness, agencies should:

* Develop systems for more complete and accurate monitoring of workplace violence incidents.

* Design and disseminate model policies and violence-prevention plans.

* Give special attention to developing violence-prevention strategies for smaller companies and for lower-paid, lower-status workers.

* Develop training programs for employers, supervisors, and employees.

* Compile and maintain lists of social service, mental health, legal, and other agencies, at the state and local level, that can provide assistance to employers or police departments in violence-prevention planning, training, threat assessment, employee counseling, etc.

5. Training

Training in violence prevention, threat detection, threat assessment, and threat management should become part of the workplace culture.

Workplace training programs for senior executives, managers, supervisors, and employees should be developed and disseminated through government agencies, local law enforcement, and employer and community organizations.

Training curricula should also be designed for police executives and officers, including specialized training in threat assessment. The FBI, state police, and state criminal justice commissions should distribute model training programs to local law enforcement agencies and provide training for smaller police departments. Police training programs should include instruction on extending community policing concepts to workplace violence.

Government or private organizations developing curricula and training materials should produce a videotape presentation on basic violence-prevention concepts tailored for small employers.

6. Domestic Violence and Stalking in the Workplace

When domestic violence follows an employee into the workplace, employers should support, protect, and help the abused partner, not punish her or him.

When an employee is being stalked, harassed, or abused at work by a domestic partner or other personal acquaintance, the employer should:

* Take steps to keep the abuser out of the workplace (screening telephone calls, making the victim's work space physically more secure, instructing security guards or receptionists, etc.).

* Assist the victim in receiving emotional, financial, and legal counseling.

* Support the employee in obtaining police protection or a restraining order against the abuser (in some cases, an employer may seek a restraining order of its own barring the abuser from its premises).

* Be flexible in allowing time off for medical treatment or court appearances.

In some cases, regrettably, employers seeking the quickest and easiest way to avoid a violent incident will fire the victim. This is unjustified and unethical and may be illegal. Discrimination against victims should NOT be tolerated.

7. Legal and Legislative Issues

Clear, comprehensive, and uniform legal guidelines should be developed and widely distributed to inform employers how they can strengthen violence-prevention measures within existing law, without infringing on due process, privacy, defamation laws, or other employee rights.

Relevant laws and liability issues should be reviewed to see if there are ways to improve employee safety without jeopardizing individual rights. In particular, there should be a review of legal restrictions on exchanging information between employers or between law enforcement and private companies concerning past criminal convictions or violent behavior by an employee or job applicant.

In the legislative field, policymakers and lawmakers should explore possible incentives such as tax breaks, insurance discounts, or carefully drawn liability exemptions that will make it easier for businesses to adopt and carry out violence-prevention programs.

8. Suggestions for Further Research

Substantial additional research, both quantitative and qualitative, should be carried out to clarify the scope and costs of workplace violence and to evaluate and improve violence-prevention strategies.

Though a large body of knowledge already exists on workplace violence, much is still to be learned about the true dimensions of the problem and its impact on American society. Much also remains to be learned about how best to prevent violence or mitigate its effects if it occurs. "Credible empirical research on all aspects of workplace violence is sparse, and existing studies are seriously limited by inadequate reporting systems," two leading experts in public administration declared in 1996; ** unfortunately, the same could still be said today.

One possible instrument for research is the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. If feasible, new categories or survey questions should be added to help identify violent crimes affecting people at work. An analysis of workers' compensation claims may also yield valuable data. Topics for future research should include:

* Ways to improve violence reporting and monitoring systems and data collection on the incidence of workplace violence. In particular, sampling or other methods should be developed to measure incidents of threats or harassment that are not reported as criminal offenses.

* Methods of measuring the economic and noneconomic costs of workplace violence.

* Analysis of workplace violence patterns, including the occurrence of different forms of violence and rates of violence in different occupational categories. A uniform reporting format for employers may be helpful in collecting data for analysis.

* Research on the damaging effects of threats, bullying, harassment, stalking, or other forms of abuse that do not inflict actual physical harm.

* Developing curricula for violence prevention training programs and methods for evaluating the effectiveness of training.

* Additional research in such areas as detecting warning signs, the relationship between various risk factors and actual violence, identifying high-risk behavior and high-risk individuals, and treatment of potentially dangerous people.

* A study of threats, including analysis of different patterns of threatening behavior, different forms of threat, and methods of evaluating when a threat is likely to be carried out.

* Qualitative research on threat assessment, aimed at refining assessment criteria, and determining which factors are most important in predicting violent behavior.

* Support services for violence victims.

* Ways to help employees and limit disruption after a disturbing event.

Most importantly, researchers should continually seek to monitor, evaluate, and refine violence prevention programs, and to the extent possible, determine which strategies appear most effective in decreasing rates of violence. A definitive evaluation will never be possible because there is no way to count incidents that did not happen. Still, with more comprehensive, reliable and detailed data, researchers can develop more sophisticated tools for analyzing what works and what doesn't. Their work, combined with a national effort to promote a workplace free from threats and violence, will benefit all businesses and all Americans.

** Nigro, Lloyd G., and Waugh, William L. Jr. Violence in the American workplace: challenges to the public employer. Public Administration Review, July-August 1996, 326-333