A workplace violence prevention plan is essential for organizations to enhance workplace safety and prevent incidents that hugely impact organizations around the world with an estimated cost of US$130 billion globally per year, according to McKinsey.
Workplace violence incidents damage not only the employer’s brands’ reputation that takes years to build, but they also have a huge economic impact due to loss of productivity, legal fees and medical bills organizations must pay after an incident occurs.
Picture this case: At a regional bank, a branch manager starts yelling at tellers, threatening and harassing them about facing unwanted “consequences” for missed targets while using profanity towards them. While no physical incident occurred, several staff members had anonymously submitted a complaint before with no formal response from HR. As the tension escalated due to the lack of HR acting on this, one of the employees secretly recorded the incident and uploaded it to the Internet. The video quickly went viral, reaching national news. In a few hours, the bank brand was in every news, becoming an employee relations priority to lead with the crisis that caused stock prices to tank and customers to question their trust. All this could be avoided with a robust workplace violence prevention strategy.
This type of situation is common when there is no strong preventative approach to workplace safety and the information is segregated. HR leaders manage the prevention of safety incidents, including workplace violence. In this process, HR teams struggle with tracking multi-step processes across jurisdictions. To avoid complaints turning into costly lawsuits and comply with laws and regulations, organizations in highly regulated industries, such as banking, professional services, telecommunications and retail, among others, understand the importance of connecting the leading and lagging compliances of these incidents.
Many companies manage these processes as separate functions, without an interconnected system like Sodales, increasing administrative burden and the risk of compliance gaps. Most effective HR leaders recognize the interconnectivity of these processes and the relevance of managing them holistically to create a safe workplace and a compliant organization.
Impact of Workplace Violence
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, workplace violence is the third-leading cause of death in the workplace with over 20,000 workplace assault cases reported annually, resulting in more than 500 fatalities.
A Harvard Business Review study shows that workplace violence incidents also affect those employees who witness, resulting in a 26% drop in job satisfaction that could lead to a decrease in retention of skilled talent. Moreover, 59% of employees who were involved in a workplace violence incident will eventually leave the company within a year, increasing hiring and training costs.
While this data is alarming, it does not give the whole picture, as not all workplace violence incidents are reported. A Society for Human Resource Management 2023 report shows that only 32% of workplace cases are reported due to retaliation fear.
The first step to prevent and avoid these incidents is to implement a workplace violence prevention plan, as it has been proven that companies without formal HR violence prevention plans are more likely to have repeat offences.
Workplace Violence Legal Framework
HR leaders are challenged to improve workplace safety and prevent workplace violence incidents while complying with different laws and regulations.
Legal trends are shifting toward proactive workplace safety prevention, requiring companies to create workplace violence prevention plans, risk assessments and training across industries. It’s no longer exclusive to the healthcare or retail industry.
United States
Workplace Violence prevention has become a requirement for all organizations operating in the U.S. HR leaders must comply with OSHA Standards and reports, Federal Status and State Regulations:
- OSHA General Duty Clause, which requires employers in the U.S. to provide workplaces free from recognized violence hazards that could physically harm or cause death to employees.
- OSHA Standards contemplate workplace violence prevention plans with zero tolerance policies, administrative controls, training, recordkeeping and hazard assessments for all companies with operations in the U.S.
- Specific State Regulations for companies operating in:
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- California – Senate Bill 553, which oversees occupational safety, restraining orders and implementing workplace violence prevention strategies for companies operating in California.
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- New York – Senate Bill S8358A: Known as the retail worker safety act requiring employers to develop and implement workplace violence prevention programs for companies in New York, U.S.
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- Multi-state mandates for Illinois, Connecticut, Minnesota, Washington, Texas, Ohio and Massachusetts to prevent risks regarding workplace violence prevention.
Canada
In Canada, workplace safety is also shifting to a preventative approach. HR leaders must follow Federal and Provincial regulations that focus on prevention:
- Canada Labour Code Part II requires employers in Canada to prevent harassment and violence in federally regulated workplaces.
- Bill C-65 calls out employers in Canada to prevent harassment and violence in the workplace, respond effectively when incidents occur and support affected employees and employers throughout the resolution process.
- For companies operating in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec and other provinces, organizations need to comply with OSHA to prevent workplace violence and implement hazard assessments, among other requirements.
Missed Leading Compliances for Workplace Violence
By the time a workplace violence incident occurs, organizations have already missed leading compliances, that, if they had been effectively detected, they could have prevented the incident. Without workplace violence prevention software that interconnects all data, this is generally the outcome organizations face.
Leading compliances are the early signs that can predict potential incidents. For example, repeated complaints about a manager’s tone, anonymous feedback about inappropriate comments or failed safety training.
Some of the leading compliances that HR leaders miss due to fragmented processes can be, but are not limited to:
- Percentage of employees missing workplace prevention training.
- Percentage of previously applied disciplines that could signal employee issues.
- Negative safety inspection results that can predict future compliance violations and incidents.
- Frequency in workplace adjustments requested within the same teams revealing pattern concerns.
- Negative survey results on the workforce’s morale, satisfaction and trust that can decrease productivity.
- Reports of unsafe conditions (mental health included as part of the Employee Assistance Programs requirement) that highlight early warning signs of potential workplace violence incidents.
These leading compliances, when overlooked, can eventually lead to consequences such as workplace violence incidents that trigger complex processes conveying lawsuits and workers’ compensation, new training and hiring and in some cases disability claims, return-to-work plans and more. This results in cost increases, production disruption, regulatory fines, damage to brand reputation and in some severe cases, death of employee(s).
Measuring these leading compliances is the first step to avoid workplace violence and safety incidents. The second step is measuring the lagging compliances.
Dealing with Lagging Compliances
Lagging compliances are the outcomes after the incident has occurred and function as reinforcement to prevent future incidents. They could be:
- More frequent and consistent inspections to avoid new incidents.
- Dealing with disability claims, job accommodations and return-to-work and return-to-office mandates.
- Lawsuits caused by a lack of communication or compliance with the federal and provincial regulations throughout the process.
- Disciplinary actions against employees who cause harm to another employee or to witnesses who did not report the incidents.
- New risk and hazards identification that can trigger new training, added processes, inspections and more.
The key to a successful workplace violence prevention plan is to understand the connectivity between the leading and lagging compliances, because everything is interconnected. Workplace violence incidents are not isolated events. Understanding these compliances under one data model changes everything for HR leaders when managing workplace safety.
Connecting these compliances empowers HR leaders to overcome the most common challenges when managing workplace violence incidents, such as:
Tracking Jurisdictional Requirements
When a workplace violence incident occurs, it rarely ends there. It provokes a cascade of requirements that organizations need to follow and track according to contracts, policies, prevention plans and hazard assessment findings.
Managing complaints without a workplace violence system that takes into consideration all these requirements is a risk to compliance control due to missed steps in the process, putting the organization at risk of legal exposure and reputational damage.
Coordination Across Functions
A structured workplace violence prevention plan contemplates a multi-step incident response, which includes cross-collaboration among teams involved across different stages of the multi-step process, from incident detection and reporting to immediate mitigation, formal investigation, findings, corrective actions and case closure.
When HR leaders manage these processes without a unified and flexible system that enables visibility of the whole process with cross-functional coordination, a workplace violence complaint can quickly escalate into a lawsuit or grievance in unionized environments, driven by missed deadlines or lack of follow-up caused by fragmented workflows. Not only do HR Managers need to see every case stage, but they also need to give limited and secure access to different roles along the process, from investigators, lawyers, managers, safety officers, auditors and shop stewards when the employees are unionized, among others.
Employee Relations and Labor Relations Challenges
Employee relations and labor relations can intersect all processes. HR leaders must proactively manage the different stages with transparent communication, fair and consistent application of policies with the right documentation and proper evidence.
Employee relations and labor relations go beyond resolving conflicts and complaints. They are about preventing issues before they escalate. Building a preventive culture means identifying and acting on leading and lagging compliances, allowing organizations to address risks proactively rather than reactively. It’s the difference between noticing a trend in lower performance in the team and preventing workplace harassment with real-time data.
Workplace Violence Prevention Plan Best Practices
The visibility and connection between leading and lagging compliances is the best approach when implementing a workplace violence prevention plan.
To connect these compliances, HR leaders need to apply these best practices:
- Integration
Using a unified platform to manage complaints, OSHA reports, RTW programs and more, while integrating with the existing HR core systems, such as Dayforce, SAP, Workday, Oracle, UKG, among others, empowering HR teams to proactively manage every stage, from incident to case closure.
- Unified Data
Strategic monitoring of leading compliances to predict risks combined with lagging compliances to measure program success allows organizations to continuously improve the management of health, safety, employee relations and labor relations.
- Audit-readiness
Maintaining clear, timely records of each and all interactions and decisions in one place enables seamless cross-functionality and collaboration while documenting everything at each stage of an incident, from opening to closing.
- Compliance
It’s more than a checklist. Compliance starts with training supervisors and establishing structured complaint processes with secure, multi-channel reporting. When organizations consistently follow each step while protecting sensitive data, they reduce risk and build a culture of accountability.
When implementing these best practices, organizations measure safety performance instead of incident rates; focus on operational risks, assess the effectiveness of workplace violence prevention plans rather than incident rates and focus on HR’s effective responsiveness to complaints and grievances to avoid escalations.
But this is not possible without the right system: Sodales.
Sodales, a Holistic Approach for Health, Safety, Employee Relations and Labor Relations
Sodales has enabled organizations with a tremendous opportunity to streamline many disparate compliance functions on a single platform. It allows HR leaders in high-risk environments and highly regulated industries such as banking, professional services, telecommunications, retail, manufacturing, public sector, oil & gas, utilities and mining, healthcare, higher education, construction, engineering and transportation, to connect the dots between leading and lagging compliances, empowering organizations to adopt a preventive approach to manage health, safety, employee relations and labor relations.
We understand that safety incidents are not isolated events and that workplace violence complaints may not be the end process after an incident report. Sodales emphasizes that leading compliances often cause lagging compliances when organizations don’t detect them and act early.
By linking these compliances in one interconnected system, HR leaders can act early, track impact and adjust strategies with real-time data, allowing organizations to shift from a reactive approach to a preventive one.
The results are transformational:
- Faster investigations and resolutions of grievances or complaints.
- Legal compliance with OSHA, forms, federal laws and provincial regulations.
- Identifying trends before they become issues with timely employee relations and labor relations KPIs.
- Reduce employee absenteeism and implement safe return-to-work and return-to-office mandates.
- Audit readiness documentation and processes with all the parties involved, from employees, employers, lawyers, inspectors, investigators, union representatives, insurance companies, regulatory bodies, etc.
Overall, this results in a more productive workforce while reducing costs and increasing productivity.
Our transformational approach has earned the trust of over five million users across more than 150 countries and leading organizations in different industries. We are an SAP Endorsed App Premium Certified integrated platform, AI-enabled for health, safety, employee relations and labor relations with capabilities to integrate with the HR Core systems you already use, such as Dayforce, Workday, Oracle, UKG, and more.
Our system is purpose-built for highly regulated and high-risk environments and it’s based on industry-specific best practices, regulations and expertise to help HR leaders make faster, more informed decisions with real data to build a smarter Framework for health and safety employee relations and labor relations.
Book a demo today to learn how Sodales can help your organization build a stronger workplace violence prevention plan.
