• The BLS states that domestic violence causes employees to miss over 175,000 day of paid work annually.


• Lawsuits in the area have been impacting cost substantially. According to Campbell and Karin as reported in Workplace Violence Reporter, the average out-of-court settlement for this type of litigation approaches $500 thousand and the average jury award of $3 million. A few awards have reached as high as $5.49 million.


Even without precise cost information, it is clear that the overall impact and cost to a business of reacting after an incident occurs can be staggering versus the cost of focusing on preventing an incident from occurring in the first place. NIOSH puts the estimated cost of a workplace homicide at more than $800 thousand.


According to the special report ‘The Financial Impact of Workplace Violence’ the cost of reacting after a serious incident has occurred is 100 times more costly than taking preventative actions.6


Illustrative of this point is the shooting incident at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VA Tech) on April 16, 2007, a tragedy which resulted in 32 victims and $8 million in expenses for the university.


Additionally, an incident will likely trigger an OSHA investigation which could result in a fine. An example, is the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration imposed a $7,000 fine against the North Suffolk Mental Health Association, a group home, where a mental health worker was murdered. OSHA found that they exposed employees to the "hazard of physical assault" while providing services to clients and failed to develop and implement adequate measures to protect employees against such assaults.


Employers should definitely be aware of OSHA’s heightened focus on workplace violence and the instructions they issued to their investigators in 2012 regarding enforcement and investigation of workplace violence incidents. (See http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/Directive_pdf/CPL_02-01-052.pdf.)


Industries and Positions Most Heavily Impacted


Because of the nature of workplace violence, virtually any business or industry that employs people or provides services and/or products to people can be impacted. The positions within a company that have the greatest exposure to workplace homicide are the ones that involve handling cash or other valuables and those that deal directly with clients, customers or people in providing a service.


Given the occupations at highest risk for homicides, it is not surprising that the industries with the highest homicide rates in 2010 were: trade, transportation & utilities (39 percent), retail trade (26 percent) and leisure & hospitably (16 percent). It is also noteworthy that the number of fatal workplace injuries among police officers increased by 40 percent, from 96 in 2009 to 134 in 2010.


In terms of cause, the highest share of workplace homicides is still due to the category of robbers and other perpetrators, but that share has fallen from 85 percent to 69 percent from 1997 to 2009. Over the same time period, the share of homicides due to co-workers has remained steady, and the share due to customers has increased primarily due to increases in the share of homicides caused by customers at drinking places and as a result of apprehending customers and breaking up fights.7


©National Institute for Prevention of Workplace Violence, Inc.


Page 6


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18