You Are Your Employee's Keeper

You Are Your Employee's Keeper

Judy Olian

(Judy Olian is Dean of Penn State's Smeal College of Business and a leading expert in strategic human resources management.)

We expect managers to be concerned about many issues that go beyond their immediate job responsibilities. One responsibility that's probably not clearly specified is their need to be concerned about the quality of the work and non-work relationships of their employees. Well, sort of...

I'm not advocating that managers should be nosy, prying into areas that are none of their business. But there are rational business reasons to be concerned about some non-work relationships of employees. That's because non-work friends and acquaintances sometimes commit violence at work.

According to Bureau of Justice Statistics analyzing data for 1993 - 1999, there were 1.7 million acts of violence committed annually at places of work. If litigated according to figures cited by Janet Wiscombe (Workforce, October 2002), the average out-of-court settlement is $500,000, or jury awards of $3 million.

Focusing on occupation fatalities, 5,915 workplace deaths occurred in 2000 and 929, or almost 16 percent, were the result of assaults and violent acts and 677 were homicides. Only highway collisions and equipment accidents accounted for more deaths. In the context of workforce statistics these are very small numbers but when it happens, it's devastating.

Based on analyses of 1992 - 1998 homicides by Eric Sygnatur and Guy Toscano of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about two-thirds are perpetrated by individuals who do not know each other, most commonly killed during worksite robberies. Taxi drivers are the occupational group most vulnerable to such assaults. But about a third of violent crimes in the workplace are committed by people who know their victim. Where there is prior association between the perpetrator and the victim, 40 percent of the homicides are committed by co-workers or former co-workers, 22 percent by customers or clients, and the rest are acquaintances and relatives. So yes, some of the violence and assault in the workplace stems from non-work relationships that travel.

The impact of these tragedies spreads beyond those directly victimized, or certainly any dollar figure. They leave a pall on the entire workplace. Some employees are never able to return to work despite extensive counseling. There are also business consequences. When an enraged client grabbed an assault pistol and fired into the offices of the San Francisco law firm, Pettit & Martin, he left 8 victims dead and 6 severely injured. The law firm never recovered and folded two years later.

It is a business responsibility to engage in prevention, no matter how remote the odds. The most effective prevention strategy is to anticipate and remove the threat of violent behavior before it ever happens. Some unstable individuals can be screened out at the hiring stage using standardized pre-employment tests. But for the most part, patterns of unstable behavior are detectable only over time, either because of long-term psychological deterioration or an event triggers unstable behavior.

Early warning systems are key. Intel has a comprehensive plan to train managers in early detection. The company also has a specially trained response team comprised of HR, legal, security and counseling experts that investigate and respond to every reported incident. The company has detailed and rehearsed routines for crisis management if violence occurs. In advance of any layoff or termination action, the team makes advance plans. Post-event, company experts fan out to address employee counseling and security needs, public relations, and pre-emptive legal actions. Every Intel employee in the company receives one hour of training about the policy and how the company responds to incidents of violence.

Intel's approach, considered a model system, states zero tolerance for work place violence. America Online (AOL) has a zero tolerance policy for weapons in the work environment. The company terminated three employees because they were seen in the parking lot transferring guns from their cars. Their action, though legally challenged by the employees, was upheld by a Utah State district court in 2002 because of the reasonableness and clarity of the policy.

A critical ingredient to combat workplace violence addresses the physical security of the workplace including surveillance systems, screening and documentation for entry into the work site and parking lots, and identification and escorting of visitors once on the premises. Organizations differ in their need to limit access and secure the perimeters of work, depending on the nature of the business.

There's no ducking it—managers have responsibility for early warning and crisis management of violence in the workplace. And in case these measures fail, AIG just announced workplace violence insurance. The insurance provides medical, consultants' and security expenses, and the costs of business interruption. Prevention is better.