Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Horse, Dead, Beating, Continuous

Been batting around some thoughts on workplace violence prevention and response at another blog...



Came across a blurb for the Protective Security Council website and blog.  There was an interesting post titled New Workplace Violence Standards describing the combined impact of the ASIS/SHRM ANSI workplace violence standard and OSHA's recent guidance on enforcement for workplace violence incidents, so I posted a comment thus:

If only the ASIS/SHRM ANSI standard had followed the statistics like OSHA does. Then it might have discussed strategies for preventing the 69% of workplace homicides which occur during robberies, and the 61% of all lost time injuries that occur in health care and social service settings.



The author replied. I continued:

I don't fault OSHA's priorities.  They are going where the statistics demonstrate the harm is the greatest.  By focusing on robbery-homicide they get after 2/3 of workplace murders.  By going after injuries to health care workers they address 2/3 of the lost work time injuries due to violence.  I wish all priorities were as easy to set.  Thanks for mentioning the NCCI Violence in the Workplace study.  Balanced reports on this important issue rarely get much press.  There is also the BJS Workplace Violence, 1993-2009, the CDC Workplace Violence Prevention Strategies and Research Needs, and the classic, if a little dated Work-related Homicides: The Facts by Sygnatur and Toscano and hosted by the BLS.  Another, fine but expensive resource, is the IOFM study 2011 Report on Workplace Violence: Complete Guide to Managing Today’s and Tomorrow’s Threats. These thoughtful documents endeavor to assign appropriate weight to the different categories of WPV, while in most other writing on the topic important distinctions are neglected or ignored.  It is regrettable that the ASIS SHRM ANSI standard does not expend much ink on the issues that result in the most fatalities or injuries.

The Protective Security Council, a Division of Varro Press Inc., is hosting their 2012 annual conference next week in Baltimore, Maryland.

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