HEALTHY WORKPLACE with Kae S. Roberts IT SHOULDN’T HURT TO
By conducting a workplace violence threat assessment, your company will have a clearer picture of the threats that may impact staff, customers, visitors and your bottom line
survey should cover all facilities inclusive of the internal and ex- ternal environments where your employees work (e.g., parking lots, adjoining busi- nesses). Fleet vehicles and off- site facilities should also be addressed in the survey.
s much as we would like to believe that workplace violence threat as- sessments are nice to have, the re- ality is that we can never be certain when and under what circumstances workplace violence might occur.
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In some cases, based on provincial legislation, conducting such an assess- ment is becoming the norm as organiza- tions take pro-active steps to minimize the potential for and/or the fall-out from work- place violence.
A key element of any threat assess- ment is the employee survey. You should be prepared to enlist the co-operation of your staff to participate in the exercise. This survey is the opportunity for you, as an employer, to capture potential risks of violence through the eyes of your em- ployees, elements that might not other- wise be captured. After all, your employees are your eyes on the ground. Assessments, essentially, are looking for the four predominant types of workplace violence: stranger, client-to-worker, col- league-to-colleague, and domestic. In keeping with these types of violence, your employees will be surveyed with respect to risks due to the physical environment. The
14 SECURITY MATTERS • FALL 2011
In addition to an assessment of the phys- ical environment it is essential that your survey address your employee’s experience of the workplace as it relates to colleagues and clients. In some cases, employers may be concerned that this will open Pandora’s Box as opinions, perceptions, suggestions and criticisms may be expressed here. As an employer, as much as it would be ideal to be able to know those risks first hand, your front line workers, managers, supervi- sors and, in some cases, volunteers are much more likely to accurately report on such threats, creating the opportunity to im- plement preventive measures.
Once the survey has been completed and qualified practitioners have con- ducted their on-site threat assessment they will compile a threat assessment re- port, complete with recommendations based on the results of the identified risks. It is important to note that threat assess- ments are only as current as the date stamp of completion. Typically a full threat assessment should be conducted on a regularly scheduled basis. It is also rec- ommended that a threat assessment be conducted following an incident of workplace violence. Depending on the cir-
GO TO WORK
cumstances of the incident it may be a more locally focused assessment. While your threat assessment is important, both as it relates to taking appropriate steps to ensure a workplace free from workplace vio- lence as well as being able to demonstrate compliance with respective legislation, what it cannot do is calibrate completely for human beings and where present, their determina- tion to become violent in the workplace. It is important then that all employees are mindful otherwise where real or potential risks may be present and report them to the employer so that they may take decisive action to mini- mize or eliminate the identified threat. Once completed, your assessment pro- vides you with a thorough picture of where particular threats may present themselves and steps the employer can take to mini- mize and or eliminate the risk. Investing in a properly conducted workplace violence threat assessment is a good business deci- sion for it is a pro-active measure that may very well be the key to ensuring a safe work environment because we all know, it shouldn’t hurt to go to work.
Kae S. Roberts is a former police sergeant with the Ot- tawa Police Service and the founder of Awakening Wave, Organizational Evolution (
www.awakeningwave.ca),
which specializes in harassment/discrim- ination workshops and training programs, as well as offers diversity in the workplace and personal wellness seminars.
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