Workplace violence is defined as:
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violence at work, in its different manifestations, is a significant and serious risk to organizational safety culture, which must be analyzed, studied, corrected, and whenever possible, eliminated.
We speak of workplace violence when a work suffer abuse, threats
or attacks in circumstances related to their work activity, which implicitly
endanger their safety, It includes both physical violence (physical aggression on the worker
or causing damage to property of the organization or staff) and psychological
violence (intimidation, threats, behaviours of psychological violence likely to
cause psychological and moral damage, etc.).
External and internal workplace violence refers to the worker's exposure to violent events.
Violence should not only
be related to physical assault. The concept of violence must be broader
than that of mere physical aggression (hitting, pushing, assaulting, ...) and
must include other behaviours that can violate and intimidate those who suffer
them. Violence at work must include, in addition to physical assaults,
threatening, intimidating, abusive and harassing verbal or physical
behaviours. In fact, the seriousness and notoriety of attacks
resulting in death or physical damage to people, the problem of violence in the
workplace is mainly centred on verbal abuse and threats, which are the most
common incidents.
Behaviours that can generate risk and possible damage to health are divided into three groups, depending on who the people involved are and the type of relationship between them is subject to separate topic:
Behaviours of physical violence.
They are those that suppose aggression of this
nature. Use of physical force to produce physical, psychological and/or
sexual harm. Includes physical aggression on the worker, such as pushing,
kicking, punching, biting, stabbing, shooting, etc. Or cause damage to the property of the organization or staff.
Behaviours of psychological violence.
They are behaviours that suppose aggression of a psychic nature between people. Intimidation, deliberate use of power, threats against a person or group to cause psychological and moral damage. Includes: verbal, gestural abuse, intimidation, threats, etc.
Processes of exposure to different types of
"harassment" may occur. These processes have great potential to
cause damage to health. They are distinguished:
Harassment at work.
psychological harassment at work is “exposure to behaviours of
psychological violence, directed repeatedly and over time, towards one or more
people. This exposure occurs within the
framework of an employment relationship and represents a significant health
risk ”. From this threshold of exposure to behaviours of psychological
violence, the worker is exposed to a process of harassment and persecution that
usually have health effects.
- Discriminatory
harassment.
All unwanted conduct related to racial or ethnic origin,
religion or convictions, disability, the age or sexual orientation of a
person, whose objective or consequence is to violate their dignity and an
intimidating or humiliating.
- Sexual harassment.
Any behaviour, verbal or
physical, of a sexual nature that has the purpose or produces the effect of
attacking against the dignity of a person, in particular when an intimidating,
degrading or offensive environment is created.
Can these risks be identified or assessed?
How to prevent these risk behaviours?
They should be evaluated and prevented. Using qualitative and quantitative techniques, in
addition to other information elements, exposures and risk factors for
workplace violence should be identified.
Basically, from the
general risk assessment and other sources of information
associated with the risk assessment methodology, the possible existence of ongoing exposure and some factors that may be related to the appearance of
risks can be identified. behaviours of workplace violence and analyze some
factors that may precede the occurrence of exposure to it.
The factors that can favour
the appearance of behaviours of psychological violence is, mainly, mismanagement by superiors. Some
aspects that favour an environment where this phenomenon can occur can be pointed
out.
- Job insecurity and uncertainty.
- Little autonomy in jobs
- Bad relations between workers.
- Little or no communication between colleagues.
- Extreme levels of labour demands.
- Sudden changes in the organization, instability and restructuring.
- Authoritarian command styles.
- Existence of unofficial spontaneous leaders.
- Little information flow in the company.
- Absence of conversations about tasks and objectives.
It is clear that if these
risk factors are eliminated or minimized, the risk of workplace harassment
situations is minimal. By improving psychosocial working conditions, the appearance of risks of workplace violence is minimized.
When, through the results of this type of evaluation, the possible exposure to violent behaviour at work is revealed, this risk should be studied in depth.
People do not want to work
in an environment in which they feel threatened, companies must defend the dignity of workers by facing violence and implementing policies that
prevent inappropriate behaviour based on zero-tolerance policies. The organization must have strategies, policies and procedures to deal
with them and that it is the employer who is who should be responsible for
its prevention.
- Preventive: That they take into consideration the roots of the cause, that is, its origin, as a form of violence, and not only its effects.
- Specific: Each type of violence requires action and measures,
- Multiple: It is necessary to combine different types of response.
- Immediate: A plan for immediate intervention needs to be established
in advance to limit the effects of bullying as much as possible.
- Participative: The intervention of all those involved is necessary,
directly or indirectly.
- In the long term: Maintain the actions, check their effectiveness and make the necessary adjustments.
Some of the strategies
that have proven useful are:
- not be afraid to face it,
- use discipline not as a punitive tool but to achieve change
- ensure there will be no retaliation or recrimination for complaints
- contemplate the notion of dignity in internal regulations
- facilitate a system for collecting and processing information
- Security staff,
- CCTV cameras,
- Training of staff about good quality service,
- No lone working policy
- keeping a record of a past incident,
- No visit after dark,
- Parking in a secure area,
- Not carrying cash,
