Workplace Violence Prevention Programs in West Texas
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2005
Abstract
The paper provides a simple summary of how popular various workplace violence prevention methods are within organizations. A workplace violence surgery was given to 110 human resource managers from various Society for Human Resource Management chapters. Results showed that employee handbook policies were the most common way of preventing/reducing workplace violence (91 percent of the sample). Reference checks were second (68 percent), violence prevention training third (67 percent) and safety programs fourth (50 percent). Other prevention methods listed were supervisor mentoring, physical security such as badges and gates, and employee testing.
The paper correlated the existence of these violence prevention measures with the number of people employed in the respondent organizations. The prevalence of violence prevention methods was significantly less in organizations with less than 50 employees. There tended to be few significant correlations between reports of physical assaults, vandalism, fights, rapes, and homicides with the existence of violence prevention measures. In contrast, there tended to be more significant positive associations of verbal threats, sexual harassment, and inappropriate jokes/slurs with the existence of those policies. Implications were discussed.
Gundars Kaupins wrote this original abstract/summary of the paper.
Publication Information
Kaupins, Gundars; Coco, Malcolm; and Cope, Joe. (2005). "Workplace Violence Prevention Programs in West Texas". SAM Advanced Management Journal, 70(4), 35-42.