Workplace Violence

On August 20, 1986, Patrick H. Sherril, a part-time postal employee working at the U.S. Post Office in Edmond, Oklahoma, killed his 14 coworkers and himself because of disciplinary actions taken against him by his supervisors. This was not the first incident of its kind. In fact, the phrase “going postal” came into being in response to several incidents involving postal employees. However, the Edmond massacre attracted a great deal of public and media attention and raised the issue of workplace violence.

Tragic events such as the Edmond massacre; the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, and terrorist attacks by al Qaeda militants on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, have represented major turning points in the debates about violence in the workplace and have shown how people can be victims of violence while they are at work. As in these tragic events, many employees have been subject to various forms of violence by either fellow employees or civilians during their daily work activities, and no employee in any sector, public or private, is immune from the threat of workplace violence. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2009, more than 500 employees were murdered at their place of employment and more than 572,000 people above16 years of age were victims of nonfatal violent crimes while they were working. Homicide is still the fourth leading cause of occupational death and the leading cause of death for female employees.

Additionally, organizations, employees, and their families incur substantial costs stemming from workplace violence. These costs include tangible costs (i.e., reduced productivity, medical and legal expenses, loss of workforce and income, and security expenses) and intangible costs (i.e., pain, suffering, fear, decreased efficiency and performance, loss of quality of life, and damaged public image) at the individual and organizational levels. Calculating the exact dollar cost of workplace violence is not an easy task because of the difficulties in quantifying the monetary value of intangible costs. Thus, estimates [Page 784]about the cost of workplace violence for employers have ranged somewhere between $5 billion and $300 billion a year.