Violence in the Workplace

I was disturbed when I turned on the television only to see that there had been yet another workplace shooting. It is sad just to think that we are not even safe in our perspective places of employment. Over the past 20 years why has there been an increase in workplace violence? Although it is shocking, yet these types of horrific incidents are not uncommon. Although there is no logical explanation for workplace violence but there are many things that can be done to prevent it.

Working in corporate America can indeed be stressful. The pressure to meet deadlines, quotas, and maintaining overall job performance can be quite overwhelming for some. Now to add insult to injury there are some members of management that purposely try to make an already stressful job into a hostile environment. The workplace should not be a playground but at the same time it should not be miserable place people have to be serious all of the time. Management should not display God complexes to its employees. Employees are the lifeblood of organizations they should not be treated like floor mats. People are human beings and should not be treated like robots. You cannot treat everybody the same but you can treat everybody fair. When someone's livelihood is threatened their actions are very unpredictable. Now in some cases where there has been violence in the workplace, the person involved displayed all of the typical signs such as; speaking openly of dislikes about the company/organization, physically and mentally abusing co-workers.

Violence in the workplace can be prevented by using company resources such as; EAP (Employee Assistance Program), ombudsman, union representatives, and manager-employee conferences. Unfortunately some companies do not tell employees about these programs so many of them do not know that they exist. There are some companies that allow its employees to take stress days. These programs allow the employee's needs and concerns to be heard. By not listening to the needs and concerns of employees unfortunately can lead to workplace violence. If we can prevent this problem why not take the necessary precautions to do so. Every company should have a department that only deals with conflict resolution. This department will deal with any and all issues that only affect employees. Companies must be valiant in efforts to stop workplace violence because too many innocent people are getting as a result of management's incompetence.