An incident of workplace violence that took place in 2017 is the shooting at Dignity Team Heath. At an office tower located in Dallas, Texas, a 60-year-old man got into his workplace and opened fire on his supervisor, shooting him to death. Investigation showed that the perpetrator did not have any criminal history and at the same time, there was no any disagreement or issue with his supervisor. He was an old gentleman who did not seem to have any problem with the supervisor and had no history of being engaged in criminal activity or any other act of violence.
The warning signs of this incident involved the body language of the shooter, signs of psychological trauma, negative change in behavior, sense of hopelessness, increased lateness or absenteeism and increased levels of aggressiveness. Before the occurrence of the event, the perpetrator showed signs of psychological trauma. He appeared stressed a week before the incident took place. He had been a jovial and social worker, but a week before the event, he looked like he was suffering from some psychological trauma. This was a sign that he could engage in some form of workplace violence. A sudden change in his social life with a possible indication of someone undergoing depression could have been enough to send warning signs to the management to act and prevent any act of violence from the person. There was a negative change in the behavior of the perpetrator as he could no longer associate with the rest of the colleagues as he was before. A week to the shooting event, the man seemed disturbed and liked to stay in isolation, a warning sign that something wrong could have been going on in the mind of the shooter.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Another warning sign of the incident was increased levels of lateness and absenteeism. The man did not have any record of reporting to work late or being absent on a regular basis. However, just a month before the incident, he had high rates of lateness and absenteeism. Even the day he shot his supervisor, the man arrived late for work. The sudden change in his reporting time was a sufficient warning sign that something was wrong somewhere. A colleague to the perpetrator also reported that the man seemed to have high levels of aggressiveness towards the last month before the incident occurred. He looked to get angered over non-issues and sometimes overreacting over minor provocations. This was however not his usual behavior. For the many years of his service, the man had not recorded any signs of aggressiveness and this only started in the month which shooting took place. The perpetrator had shown much negative behavior change that were enough warning signs to the management that something was wrong with the man and needed to be handled before the shooting incident occurred. Usually, a worker undergoing some form of psychological trauma or stress are more likely to develop a negative behavior change before they could engage in a risky violent act that could harm other workers ( Phillips, 2016 ).
The insight I can have for the leaders of the organization is that they should train the members on how to identify the warning signs of the possible act of violence and respond immediately. Training the members on the way to identify potential warning signs and then reporting them can be useful to in helping the organization prevent such incidents from taking place ( Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2015 ). The shooter showed many warning signs before the act of violence and had the staff been trained to identify such signs and report; a possible solution would have been reached before the killing took place. The leaders should also train the employees on how to respond when they are faced with a threat of violence. They can remain calm, stop issuing orders or engaging in an exchange of words that could further anger the perpetrator. Because workplace violence can take place in any organization, the management must be prepared to handle the issue. There should be sufficient security within the workplace to respond to the issue of the threat of violence that could arise at any time ( Dillon, 2012 ). Monitoring and security checks should be done to ensure that no person comes to the workplace with a weapon which could be used to harm another worker.
Irrespective of the strategies put in place to minimize the chances of workplace violence taking place, it can still occur. Employees and the victims must be trained in how best to cope after the incident has occurred. The first coping strategy is to report the incident to the relevant authority so that appropriate measures can be taken to find a lasting solution. Another approach that can be used to help employees cope with workplace violence is to offer guidance and counseling that can help them get over the bad experience and develop a positive mind ( Conrad, 2012 ). Organizational social support is necessary to keep the victims from the trauma that can sometimes come with workplace violence. Social support can help them develop positive thinking, accepts that workplace violence can happen to anyone and be ready to respond to such a situation should it occur another time. Workplace violence can have negative effects on the productivity of individual workers who may feel demoralized and unhappy with their work. However, when the management provides social and emotional support, the employees will feel that the management cares for them and as a result, they will be ready to cope and get back to their normal happy work life ( Zhao et al., 2015 ).
References
Conrad, M. (2012). Safeguarding employees from workplace violence. Routledge.
Dillon, B. L. (2012). Workplace violence: impact, causes, and prevention. Work , 42 (1), 15-20.
Phillips, J. P. (2016). Workplace violence against health care workers in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine , 374 (17), 1661-1669.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (2015). Guidelines for preventing workplace violence for healthcare and social service workers (No. OSHA 3148-04R 2015).
Zhao, S., Liu, H., Ma, H., Jiao, M., Li, Y., Hao, Y., ...& Wu, Q. (2015). Coping with workplace violence in healthcare settings: Social support and strategies. International journal of environmental research and public health , 12 (11), 14429-14444.
