Who Might be Affected?
Many individuals and professions are at risk from violence and these include the following: -
- Those working shifts, at night or alone
- Those providing a service
- Those in the caring professions
- Those in the education profession
- Those involved in cash transactions
- Those representing authority
It is important to protect your employees from violence, not simply for their health and safety, although this should be viewed as reason enough by all responsible employers, but violence or the threat of violence can seriously affect staff morale and productivity. There is also a legal duty for employers to ensure the health and safety of their employees.
What Should I Do First? If you have or suspect that you might have a problem with violence in your workplace, then it is important that you take action to protect your employees and this can be achieved by taking a few simple steps, detailed below:
- Find out if you have a problem. Ask your staff if they have ever been or felt threatened, abused or assaulted whilst at work. This should be done informally and in confidence, as some people will be reluctant to give details, especially if the violence is from a work colleague. Their experience may differ from your view of the problem. Do not single out people to ask their views but carry out a survey of all your staff at the same time.
- Keep records of any violence reported and bear in mind that, in some cases, you may have to report it to the police or be required to report the incident via the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR).
What Should I Do if I Find I Have a Problem?
If your survey shows that you do have a problem with violence, then your next step is to decide what action you need to take. Firstly, you need to know which of your employees is at risk, which may include those who come into face-to-face contact with the general public, those who visit other people's homes during the course of their work, and those who work alone or at night. You might be able to identify potentially violent people that your staff come into contact with so that protective measure can be put in place.
You will need to assess the level of risk and whether or not your existing control measures are adequate. If you decide that you need to take more action, then you may wish to consider the following:
- Train and inform your staff about violence and preferably how to avoid it, or how to deal with it should it happen.
- If appropriate, change the working environment by improving lighting, installing CCTV, alarms and improving security for your staff.
- If you can change the design of the job, then this may help improve the level of security. For instance you may consider using credit cards, cheques or tokens rather than cash, varying the frequency and route for journeys where cash is taken to other premises, or carrying out checks on potential clients prior to meeting them.
- You should consider allowing staff to work in pairs or giving members of staff a means of contacting help, such as a mobile phone. You may also consider issuing personal attack alarms to your staff..
- Remember that once your staff leave their workplace, they are still at risk from violence for instance in badly-lit car parks, and for those people without their own means of transport who work until late you might consider providing transport.
Once you have decided what action you need to take, you need to implement them. You must remember to train and inform staff before you install equipment or change work patterns so that they are aware of the changes and know what they need to do to reduce the risk of violence occurring.
Don't Forget to Review What You Have Done After you have implemented your actions, you will need to check that they are working as expected and carry out regular reviews to ensure that they remain effective. You might want to consider training new staff about violence in the workplace during their induction training. In spite of all the precautions you may take, incidents of violence at work are always a possibility. Should a member of your staff suffer such an incident, then you will need to respond quickly and review your arrangements as well as offering support and advice to the victim. Such support might include time off work, counselling and legal advice. More advice on violence in the workplace is available from your local authority or go to The Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) website
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