Half of employers with 1,000 or employees in the United States had an incident of workplace violence within the 12 months prior to completing a new survey on workplace violence prevention, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in The Survey of Workplace Violence Prevention, released October 27, 2006.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted the survey for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The survey looks at the prevalence of security features, the risks facing employees, employer policies and training, and related topics associated with maintaining a safe work environment.
The survey asked whether an incident of workplace violence had occurred during the past year and, if so, how had the incident affected the staff and had the employer implemented changes to reduce the risk of further incidence.
While 5 percent of all establishments, including state and local governments, had a violent incident, half of the largest establishments (employing 1,000 or more workers) reported an incident. In these largest establishments, the most prevalent type of incident was co-worker (34.1 percent), followed by a customer or client (28.3 percent), domestic violence (24.1 percent), and criminal (17.2 percent).
More than 28 percent of respondents with 250 to 999 employees said they had an incident of workplace violence in the last year.
Of all establishments reporting an incident of workplace violence in the previous 12 months, 21 percent reported that the incident affected the fear level of their employees and twenty-one percent indicated that the incident affected their employees’ morale.
Over 70 percent of United States workplaces have no formal program or policy that addresses workplace violence.
In establishments that reported having a workplace violence program or policy (approximately 30%), private industry most frequently reported addressing co-worker violence (82 percent). Customer or client violence was the next most frequent subject of private industry policies or programs (71 percent), followed by criminal violence (53 percent) and domestic violence (44 percent).*
Twenty percent of establishments in private industry provided training on preventing workplace violence while 32 percent of local government workplaces and 58 percent of state government workplaces provided this training. Only 4 percent of all establishments trained on domestic violence and its impact on the workplace.
Forty-three percent of private industry establishments report tracking the cost of workplace injuries and illnesses while less than half of those (20 percent) report tracking costs related to incidents of workplace violence.
To view the entire report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, visit http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osnr0026.txt or http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osnr0026.pdf
(* CAEPV NOTE: This does NOT mean 44% of establishments have a workplace program or policy addressing domestic violence. It means that of those establishments that have any kind of workplace violence policy (30% of the total surveyed), only 44% have a policy or program on domestic violence. So in this case, the BLS survey came up with a lower percentage of employers with domestic violence workplace programs and policies than did the CAEPV National Telephone Survey.)
