Applied Ergonomics 45 (2014) 839e848

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Applied Ergonomics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apergo

Understanding workplace violence: The value of a systems perspective Tim A. Bentley a, *, Bevan Catley b, Darryl Forsyth b, David Tappin b a b

New Zealand Work Research Institute, Faculty of Business and Law, AUT University, 42 Wakefield St., Auckland, New Zealand Healthy Work Group, Massey University, Albany Campus, Auckland, New Zealand

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 9 April 2013 Accepted 30 October 2013

Workplace violence is a leading form of occupational injury and fatality, but has received little attention from the ergonomics research community. The paper reports findings from the 2012 New Zealand Workplace Violence Survey, and examines the workplace violence experience of 86 New Zealand organisations and the perceptions of occupational health and safety professionals from a systems perspective. Over 50% of respondents reported violence cases in their organisation, with perpetrators evenly split between co-workers and external sources such as patients. Highest reported levels of violence were observed for agriculture, forestry and construction sectors. Highest risk factor ratings were reported for interpersonal and organisational factors, notably interpersonal communication, time pressure and workloads, with lowest ratings for environmental factors. A range of violence prevention measures were reported, although most organisations relied on single control measures, suggesting unmanaged violence risks were common among the sample. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Workplace violence Occupational health and safety professionals Psychosocial risk

1. Introduction A growing body of literature has examined the extent of workplace violence internationally (Chappell and Di Martino, 2006; Kelloway et al. 2006). At a time when other forms of violence in society appear to be on the decline, research suggests that workplace violence is increasing (Estrada et al., 2010), including violence as a leading form of occupational fatality (Menendez et al., 2013). This is reflected in the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work report (2010), which forecasted workplace violence to be one of the important emerging issues facing organisations. Despite a growing interest in this psychosocial phenomenon from researchers and international and national bodies concerned with safety and injury prevention, the ergonomics literature has largely ignored workplace violence to date. While ergonomics has contributed to the literature on other psychosocial risks e often in the context of musculoskeletal disorders and notably stress (e.g. Eatough et al., 2012), and working hours and fatigue (e.g. Bohle et al., 2011) e just two peer-reviewed articles on the problem of workplace violence were identified (using the search term * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ64 9 921 9999x5446. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (T.A. Bentley), [email protected] (B. Catley), [email protected] (D. Forsyth), [email protected] (D. Tappin).

combination: “work” “violence” AND “human factors” or “ergonomic* or “hfe”) from a search of Scopus for the period 2000-to date (March, 2013). These two articles were concerned with violence, bullying and other psychological risks among Turkish workers (Aytac et al., 2011) and violence and ergonomic prevention (Choe, 2000). Neither article applied a systems approach to the problem of workplace violence. During this period, more than 400 articles on the topic appeared in medicine journals and hundreds more in nursing, management and safety-related journals. Much of this literature on workplace violence dealt with descriptive epidemiology focusing on specific industry sectors, with few articles considering broader systemic concerns or focusing in more depth at risk factors and preventive measures. The absence of a contribution to the field by ergonomics is surprising as ergonomics, as a systems discipline, has an important role to play in understanding workplace violence risk and effective measures for its prevention. Like other occupational health and safety risks, violence in the workplace is related to the broad work system (rather than being a strictly interpersonal conflict problem) and can be understood in terms of interactions between individual, task, environment, and organisational work system elements. Moreover, the analysis and design of these system components are key to an effective violence prevention initiative. The present paper seeks to apply a systems approach to the study of violence in New Zealand workplaces, and in particular the

0003-6870/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2013.10.016

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analysis of violence control measures. Having first examined the extent and nature of violence cases in a sample of organisations from a wide range of New Zealand industry sectors, the paper explores health and safety managers’ perceptions of risk for the different aspects of the work system, and current measures to manage risk amongst respondent’s organisations from the perspective of a systems model of violence control. 1.1. Workplace violence in New Zealand and internationally Workplace violence is a relatively recent consideration under New Zealand health and safety law. Introduced in 1992, the Health and Safety in Employment Act provided a more systematic approach to hazard management than existed previously under several laws. However, psychological harm and worker participation, two elements highly relevant to workplace violence, were not included in the Act until a 2002 amendment. Consequently, the profile of such psychosocial issues among industry and government agencies alike is still developing. Following a number of high profile incidents involving fatal and non-fatal cases of violence against New Zealand employees (Mayhew and Reilly, 2007), exploratory studies explored the extent and nature of violence at work across a range of New Zealand industry sectors (Bentley et al., 2013; Catley et al., 2011). This initial research found relatively high levels of reported workplace violence across the range of surveyed organisations, but most notably in health and public administration workplaces. In the most recent survey (Bentley et al., 2013), a total of nearly 2500 cases of workplace violence were reported by 96 organisations with 436 cases involving some form of physical injury (18% of all reported cases). The incidence rate for all violence cases (32.3 per 1000 employees) was at the high end in relation to internationally reported rates, as the discussion below indicates. Highest violence incidence rates and lost-time due to violence injury were reported for organisations from the health sector. However, interpreting prevalence data must be treated with caution due to the considerable variation employed by researchers in the definitions, terminology and their operationalisation (Schat et al., 2006). Additionally, the concept of violence is itself often treated in an axiomatic fashion (Catley and Jones, 2002). Yet, the extent of workplace violence reported in international studies does suggest a significant concern in all countries where data on such events are available. Typically, a prevalence range of between 1.5% and 5% is observed for violence experienced by workforces surveyed, including 13 per 1000 in the US (Hartley et al., 2005); 2% of Canadian Public Service Employees (Kelloway et al., 2006), 5% of workers in Europe (Parent-Thirion et al., 2007), and 4.9% of UK workers (Jones et al., 2011). Employees at greatest risk of violence include those working in health, public administration, education, transportation and hospitality (Chappell and Di Martino, 2006; European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2010; Gerberich et al., 2004; Gerberich et al., 2011; Jones et al., 2011; Kowalenko et al., 2013; Pompeii et al., 2013; Schat et al., 2006). Nurses and others working in health care and amongst hospital staff in particular appear to be the most vulnerable occupational groups for assaults from patients, visitors and others (Gerberich et al., 2004; Henry and Ginn, 2002; Chen et al., 2012; Pompeii et al., 2013). Consistent with these international findings, Bentley et al. (2013) and Catley et al. (2011) found that rates of workplace violence in New Zealand were notably higher among employees working in education, health, public transport and postal services. Counter to the stereotype that workplace violence is typically co-worker aggression, research indicates that the perpetrator of workplace violence is more likely to be e depending on industry e

a patient, hospital visitor, client or customer (Barling et al., 2009; VandenBos and Bulatao, 1996; Chappell and Di Martino, 2006; Chen et al., 2012; Gerberich et al., 2004; Hoobler and Swanberg, 2006; Jones et al., 2011; Jenkins, 1996; Kelloway et al., 2006; Laden and Schwartz, 2000; Pompeii et al., 2013; Schat et al., 2006). These international findings were supported by the previous surveys conducted by the present authors in New Zealand, with highest risk ratings for non-employee perpetrators, although this varied by industry sector (Bentley et al., 2013; Catley et al., 2011). Health organisations rated patients, customers/clients, and family members as particularly important potential sources of violence, while in education patients and students were highest rated. Although workplace violence is often represented as being about co-worker aggression, co-workers were rated highest for only two industry sectors: ‘manufacturing and professional’ and ‘scientific and technical services’. Highest risk factor ratings (as perceived by occupational health and safety managers and others responsible for managing workplace violence) were reported for exposure to unstable persons, including: alcohol and drug use, prejudice and/or harassment, and mental instability/distress. 1.2. A systems approach to workplace violence The extent of the workplace violence problem and its impact on individual workers and organisations has led to a considerable body of epidemiological research literature that has investigated risk factors for workplace violence. However, rather less research attention has been focused on measures to prevent violence at work (Campbell et al., 2011; Chappell and Di Martino, 2006; May and Grubbs, 2002). Chappell and Di Martino’s (2006) conceptual systems model is particularly useful in assisting in risk assessment as it depicts the interactive role of individual, workplace, contextual and societal risk factors in the aetiology of workplace violence events. This model has provided a basis for the collection of risk factor data in the previous New Zealand surveys, with a range of individual and organisation risk factors identified as of key importance by respondents. Previous New Zealand studies (Bentley et al., 2013; Catley et al., 2011) have found highest risk factor ratings for individual factors, including exposure to unstable persons, although, interestingly, workloads and time pressure also received relatively high ratings, suggesting poorly organised work and workrelated stress increases the perceived risk of violence in the workplace. Indeed, research has indicated that stress can lead to the breakdown of workplace relationships and increase violence risk, while factors such as competition for scarce resources, work intensification and constant change can be important antecedents for workplace violence (Hoad, 1993; Howard and Wech, 2012; Jones et al., 2011). The present study draws on the Chappell and Di Martino (2006) systems model to determine the relative contribution of risk factors in the experience of workplace violence in New Zealand. Moreover, it attempts to understand the violence prevention measures employed by New Zealand organisations from different industry sectors and relates the control options available to managers according to Catley et al.’s (2011) conceptual systems model. The model includes four key control dimensions that may be available as a violence control measure to organisations from different sectors: (1) behaviour e managing the behaviour of people in and around the workplace; (2) technology e including surveillance and other technology solutions; (3) administrative controls e notably shift scheduling and workload management; and (4) environmental design e including factors such as the use of lighting, barriers to isolate vulnerable employees from dangerous situations, and workplace layout and design factors. Supporting each of these control dimensions is the organisation’s health and safety culture e

T.A. Bentley et al. / Applied Ergonomics 45 (2014) 839e848

principally, a shared understanding of the workplace violence risk and how to manage it, and a communicated commitment at the top of the organisation to prioritise violence control. These control dimensions are shown in Fig. 1, from the perspective of the control of violence risk to taxi drivers, and as a comparison, retail shop workers. The degree of overlap with the larger circle for each of the four violence measures corresponds to the ability to control each dimension for each sector. In the case of taxi drivers, little control can be exerted over the external environment and work organisation and therefore control activity needs to focus on the other control measures such as technology. This has been well-illustrated in New Zealand where, following a fatal knife attack on a taxi driver, all cabs are legally required to be fitted with a surveillance camera. The presence of cameras has reduced the incidence of attacks on taxi drivers, acting as a deterrent for passengers considering a

841

verbal or physical attack on the driver. For retail workers, all four dimensions of control can be applied, as the working environment for retail staff is restricted to the store, and technology in the form of surveillance cameras and panic buttons can be readily applied. These factors will in turn influence customer behaviour, reducing the risk of violence from an external source further. Work organisation, such as ensuring workers are not roistered on late shifts alone, will further reduce the violence risk. There is little published research on organisational attempts to manage the workplace violence problem (Bentley et al., 2013; Dillon, 2012; Wassell, 2009); although the literature that is available suggests that current violence management prevention is inadequate. Dillon (2012), from a review of the literature, reports that nearly 70% of US organisations have no programs or policies to deal with violence. Previous New Zealand studies by the present authors have found just 50% of organisations formally recognised violence as a hazard in the workplace, and many organisations did not formally address violence as part of their risk management activity (Bentley et al., 2013; Catley et al., 2011). The present study seeks to add to this meagre literature by focusing on the prevention activities to control workplace violence used by organisations from the different sectors responding to the survey. Moreover, it considers the use of the different control dimensions depicted in Fig. 1. 1.3. Study aims The present study, in common with its predecessors, aims to examine the extent and nature of the workplace violence problem in a sample of New Zealand organisations, towards the on-going development of a biennial workplace violence survey that can assist government and industry in monitoring the workplace violence problem, identify key areas of risk and develop interventions that target these areas. The study had four specific aims: i) to determine the extent and nature of cases of workplace violence (including assault on both people and property) among a sample of New Zealand organisations from a variety of industry sectors ii) to identify the major perceived sources of violence/perpetrators for participating industry sectors iii) to identify perceived key risk factors for workplace violence, in relation to a systems model, from the perspective of different sectors iv) to examine workplace violence control measures presently employed by participating organisations and relate these measures to a systems control model. 2. Method 2.1. Sample

Fig. 1. Conceptual model of violence control as applied to the transport (taxi drivers) and retail sectors (adapted from Catley et al., 2011).

The sample for the 2012 New Zealand Workplace Violence Survey was drawn from the occupational health and safety professionals who subscribe to the New Zealand Safeguard Forum e an email-based forum for health and safety professionals hosted by the Safeguard Magazine. Respondents accepted an invitation to participate in the survey posted on the Safeguard Forum site. Approximately 400 individuals subscribe to the Safeguard Forum, although it is unknown how many are practicing OHS professionals or in related fields, nor how many received the invitation email to participate. Thus, determining an accurate response rate is impossible, although the 93 respondents suggest a minimum response rate of approximately 24%.

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2.2. Procedure, data treatment and analysis A web-based survey was developed and a message was posted on the Safeguard Site, with the agreement of the site administrator, and emailed to the Forum membership inviting individuals to respond to the survey. Individuals were asked to respond if they either worked in a health and safety management function in an organisation or operated as a consultant or advisor attached mainly to one organisation. The invitation message included a brief information section outlining the background and aims of the study, and detailing ethics approval for the survey. Respondents were informed that the survey would take approximately 20e30 min to complete (some additional time may have been required to retrieve relevant records from the organisations database). Respondents were also informed that their responses were confidential and no individual or organisation would be identified in the findings of the study. They were also told they could withdraw from the survey at any point. Participation in the on-line survey was considered to be consent to participate. Once respondents had completed and submitted the survey, the data were automatically transferred to an IBM SPSS spreadsheet, where they were cleaned and prepared for analysis. Analysis was conducted in IBM SPSS for Windows version 20. Analysis involved basic descriptive analysis of all variables, including crosstabulations between key variables. Qualitative analysis involved thematic content analysis of narrative text describing intervention measures used by organisations, based on the control dimensions framework provided by the Catley et al. (2011) conceptual systems model. 2.3. Survey design The on-line survey was divided into four main sections: basic demographical details; reports of workplace violence recorded by the organisation; the respondent’s views on risk factors for workplace violence in their organisation (this section was divided into four main scales, originally derived from factors included in Chappell and Di Martino’s (2006) conceptual systems model, containing a total of 30 items); and the organisation’s risk management practices in relation to workplace violence (this section was informed by a number of items used in the US Department of Labour, Bureau of labour Statistics Survey of Workplace Violence Prevention, 2007). While the authors acknowledge that there are competing representations of violence (Catley and Jones, 2002), the respondents were asked to focus on individual physical acts of violence when responding to the questions in Sections 2e4. Throughout the questionnaire the majority of items used Likerttype response scales, while open free-text fields were used to collect data on preventive measures used by respondents’ organisations. 3. Results 3.1. Sample demographics Some 93 health and safety professionals responsible for managing workplace violence in their organisations responded to the survey, although seven respondents did not answer a number of question items and their data was excluded from the study. This left a total of 86 usable responses. Participating organisations ranged from the very small to the very large, by New Zealand standards (range: 1e7000 employees), with a mean organisational size of 626, and a total number of staff represented by the 86 organisations of approximately 54,000. Participating organisations were largely located in the main New Zealand cities, and were representative of

Table 1 Reported level of workplace violence for participating organisations. Workplace violence category

Organisations reporting violence cases (%)

Organisations reporting 5 or more cases violence cases (%)

Attempted physical assault (no injury reported) Physical assault (minor injury reported) Physical assault (lost time and/or hospitalisation reported) Attempted assault on organisational property (no significant damage) Assault on organisational property (causing damage)

43

11

23

0

1

0

25

10

21

6

the population distribution of New Zealand. Almost one-half of the sample was comprised from organisations operating in three industry sectors: manufacturing (26%), construction (11%), transport, postal and warehousing (11%), with a further 7% in health care. The majority of survey respondents were health and safety managers/ advisors/coordinators (60%) or human resource managers/advisors (21%) e the remaining were in general management roles that also had responsibility for health and safety. Respondents had moderate to high experience in their current role, with a mean time in role of just over five years (sd ¼ 5.5). 3.2. Perceived and reported levels of workplace violence across the sample Almost 75% of respondents rated the level of risk of workplace violence associated with the work of their organisation as being either ‘very low’ or ‘low risk’ on a five-point scale (very low-very high risk). Just 5% rated the risk of violence to be either ‘high’ or ‘very high’. Table 1 provides an overview of cases of workplace violence reported by respondents. Despite the low level of perceived risk (evidenced in respondents’ violence risk ratings) associated with workplace violence in the respondents’ organisations, more than one-half reported some form of violent event over the 12-months period. However, the majority of these cases were relatively minor in terms of injury to persons or damage to property. Some 510 incidents of workplace violence were reported, with 299 of these being physical assaults as opposed to cases of damage to organisational property. The table shows the number of organisations reporting violence cases for the five different categories of violence employed by the study, with three levels of physical assault and two levels of property damage. While the proportion of organisations reporting minor categories of physical assault were high compared to previous studies by the present authors (Bentley et al., 2013), the number of serious harm events was relatively low. Table 2 shows reported incidence of violence by industry sector for those sectors with representation in the survey from at least five Table 2 Reported cases of workplace violence by sector. Industry sector

Organisations reporting violence case (%) 2012 All categories

Physical assault

Manufacturing Health care Construction Agriculture, forestry and fishing Other Services Transport, postal Total

52 67 57 83

48 27 57 83

46 50 53

27 50 48

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Table 3 Perceived sources of workplace violence risk by sector.

Agriculture, forestry and fishing Manufacturing Construction Transport, postal and warehousing Professional, scientific and technical Health care and social assistance Other services Other

Employees/workers

Supervisors/managers

Customers/clients

Patients

Students

Partner/family member

Stranger

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean SD

Mean SD

Mean

SD

Mean SD

3.17 3.36 2.89 2.22 2 1.67 2.17 1.76

0.98 1.43 1.27 1.39 1 1.21 1.27 0.97

2 2.18 1.78 1 1.8 2 1.5 1.76

1.1 1.05 1.3 0 1.1 1.55 1 1.2

1 1.62 2 2.14 2.4 3.5 2.33 3.13

0 1.07 1.41 1.46 1.34 1.22 1.5 1.45

1 1 1 1 N/A 4.4 1.33 1.67

1 1 1 1 2 1.2 1 2

1 1.83 2.17 1.67 2 1.8 1.5 1.8

0 0.94 0.75 1.21 1.41 1.79 1.07 1.23

1.33 1.6 2.56 2.43 2 2.4 2.75 2.55

responding organisations. Highest levels of violence were observed for the agriculture, forestry and construction organisations represented in the sample, this finding being out of step with most international studies where health sector violence attracts most research attention. Indeed, previous New Zealand surveys have found health, public sector and transport sectors to report highest violence incidence (Bentley et al., 2013). 3.3. Perceived sources of workplace violence Table 3 shows mean ratings of importance of different types of perpetrator as sources of violence in respondents’ organisations, as measured on a five point Likert-type scale. Overall ratings were approximately even for all sources of violence, although these figures are more meaningful when considered independently for each industry sector. In-line with the previous surveys, health care organisations rated patents (mean: 4.4; sd: 0.55) as a very important source of risk, with customers/clients (3.5; 1.22) also of particularly high importance. While workplace violence is often thought of as being about coworker aggression, co-workers were highest rated for just three sectors: ‘agriculture, forestry and fishing’; ‘manufacturing’; and ‘construction’. Although these figures possibly reflect the physical nature of the work in these sectors and attendant masculine cultural values, it is more likely a reflection of the lack of exposure to other potential sources of violence in the daily work of most staff. Stranger violence was rated highest in the transport, postal and warehousing sector group, reflecting the nature of the work in the occupational groups represented where exposure to the public outside of the workplace is frequent. 3.4. Perceived risk factors for workplace violence Respondents were asked to rate the importance of a set of 29 possible risk factors for workplace violence, derived from the

0 0 0 0 N/A 0.55 0.58 1.15

0 0 0 0 1.41 0.45 0 1.41

0.58 0.99 1.33 1.51 1 1.67 1.91 1.81

literature and a conceptual systems model of workplace violence risk constructed by Chappell and Di Martino (2006). Risk factors included in the list were related to the broad work system; covering individual, organisational, and environmental factors. Tables 4e6 show risk factors ratings in terms of importance for workplace violence, organised under these three areas, for sectors where five or more organisations participated in the survey. Looking first at the overall ratings of risk (across all sectors), highest mean ratings were reported for interpersonal and organisational factors and lowest for environmental. Specific interpersonal factors with highest mean ratings were: interpersonal communication (mean: 2.62; sd: 1.21); alcohol and drug use (2.43; 1.27); prejudice and/or harassment (2.24; 1.21), and perceived injustice (2.50; 1.33). Similar to the 2010 survey, organisational factors which received the highest mean ratings were workloads (2.53; 1.26) and time pressure (2.60; 1.21), suggesting work-related stress increases the perceived risk of violence in the workplace. Inadequate staff training in managing workplace violence (2.40; 1.21) and exposure to customers/contact with public (2.35; 1.43) were also highly rated across the sample. The relatively low rankings for the environmental risk factors, notably cash on the premises (1.45; 1.02), and working area design/ layout (1.70; 0.95), are likely to reflect the fact that for many respondents these factors were a non-issue e i.e. they did not feature in the work of their employees. For the health care sector, the physical location of the workplace (2.33; 1.03) was rated relatively highly, reflecting the impact location and environmental design can have on the work of sector staff and interactions with the public. In-line with the 2007 and 2010 surveys, organisational factors related to workload, time pressure, and organisational communication were notably high for the health, construction and manufacturing sectors, reflecting the high levels of psychological and physical demand in these sectors and stress outcomes which may increase the likelihood of psychosocial problems such as bullying and violence. For the health care sector, working in

Table 4 Perceived importance of Interpersonal sources of violence (measured on 1-5 scale, 1 ¼ not important; 5 ¼ very important). Employees not following instructions

Agriculture, forestry and fishing Manufacturing Construction Transport, postal and warehousing Professional, scientific and technical Health care and social assistance Other services Other

Alcohol or drug use

Prejudice and/or harassment

Perceived injustice

Interpersonal communication

Mental instability/distress

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

1.83

0.98

2.5

0.84

2.5

0.84

2.33

1.37

2.83

1.83

1.5

0.55

2.18 2.11 1.33

1.18 0.93 0.5

2.41 2.78 2.11

1.26 1.09 1.45

2.64 2.22 2.11

1.26 1.3 1.36

2.77 2.22 2.44

1.38 1.09 1.33

2.77 2.78 2.44

1.07 1.09 1.33

2.05 1.33 2.11

1.05 0.5 1.69

1.4

0.55

2.2

1.3

1.8

1.1

2

1.41

2

1.41

2.6

1.34

2.67

1.63

3.5

1.22

2

1.1

2.17

1.6

3

0.89

3.17

1.6

2 2

1.21 1.17

2.42 2.12

1.62 1.11

1.92 2.18

1.16 1.29

2.5 2.65

1.45 1.37

2.25 2.65

1.36 1.22

2.08 2.29

1.24 1.21

1.56 1.17

1.37

0.84

0.67 1.32 1.39

0.82

0.62 1.92 1.66 2 1.25 2 1.24 1.28 1.31 2.42 1.09 2.53 1.92 1.94 1.21 1.05 2.17 1.94 1.75 1.48 2.83 2.94 1.36 2.25 1.31 2.71 2.25 2.71

1.42 2.17 1.31 2.18

1.47 0.95

2.17 2.53

1.47 1.12

1.75 2 1.25 2.12

0.98 2.67 1.83 0.98 0.63 2.83 2 1.47 3.5 1.22 3.5

Agriculture, forestry and fishing Manufacturing Construction Transport, postal and warehousing Professional, scientific and technical Health care and social assistance Other services Other

3 1.6 2.83

1.41 2.17

0.98

2.67

1.63

1.05 2.17

1.8 0 1 0.55 0.89 1.4 1.6 1.34 2.6 1.67 2.4 1.67 2.2 2.4

1.3

1.4

0.89

1.4

0.89

1.52 1.6

1.02 1.45 1.51 2 1.41 1.78 1.77 2.56 1.67 1.14 1.5 1.32 1.07 2.59 0.5 2.67 1.32 2 1.77 1.33 1.67 1.13 1.01 0.88 1.59 1.44 1.56 1.28 0.88 1.22 1.73 2.44 2 1.19 2.73 1.3 2.89 0.71 2 2.77 2.78 1.67

1.16 2.27 1.17 2 0.71 1.44

1.03 1 0.53

2.45 1.89 1.44

1.26 1.05 1.01

1.01 2.05 0.53 1.44 1.33 1.44

1.21 1.67 2.33 0.98 1.83 1.6 1.83 1.33 1.83 0.41 1.17 1.38 3 2.5

1.1

1.5

0.55

2.17

1.17

0.98 2.17

Mean Mean SD SD Mean Mean SD SD Mean SD SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Mean

Time pressure

Interruptions

Mean

The management of workplace violence was identified as a priority by 44% of respondents’ organisations, with 5% communicating workplace violence risks to their staff ‘often’, and a further 62% communicating violence risk at least sometimes. Some 23% of organisations had employed the services of a security specialist in relation to preventing workplace violence. The survey questioned respondents on their organisation’s health and safety management system in relation to workplace violence. Respondents reported that workplace violence had been formally identified as a hazard in 50% of organisations, this figure being identical to the finding of the 2010 survey. Some 28% reported having a specific risk management plan for workplace violence in place, and a further 28% having a general hazard management plan that included workplace violence; figures similar to those reported in the international literature (Dillon, 2012). A fairly large proportion of respondents (30%) reported that at least some of their employees had had specialist training in relation to workplace violence or related aspects of security. Respondents were also asked to describe measures, in addition to training, that had been put in place in their organisations for the prevention and control of workplace violence. While some of these, for example policy and hazard management, were generic in nature, many others appeared to be specifically designed for the control and management of the workplace violence problem. It was

Organisational communication

SD

Respondents were asked to rank the four dimensions of violence control shown in Fig. 1 and identified from previous research by these authors (Bentley et al., 2013; Catley et al., 2011) in relation to their importance for their organisation’s violence prevention strategies. Highest average rankings (i.e. those most often selected as the most important when ordering in relation to the other 3 control dimensions) were reported for behavioural control (mean: 1.56; sd: 0.84), followed by administrative control (2.39; 0.94), environmental (2.61; 0.97), and technological (3.43; 0.84). Hence, for most organisations, behaviour was the dimension of control over which there was most focus in relation to their violence prevention strategies while technology received the least focus. Examining these findings by sector, some sectorial differences in control rankings were observed. Notably, behavioural control is seen as consistently most important in agriculture, forestry and fishing organisations along with health care, while technological control is ranked consistently lowest in health care and relatively high for retail. These findings have implications for organisations working across different sectors where some categories of intervention are either unavailable (e.g. environmental control for postal workers who deliver mail) or difficult to manage effectively (e.g. behavioural control in health care). In these cases, it is suggested that safety improvements need to be made through improvements to other control dimensions and to health and safety culture with regard to workplace violence and the organisation of work, including administrative measures. Further research by the present authors is exploring the different control options and constraints on control for organisations of different type and from different industry sectors.

Working in isolation/ remotely

Mean

Culture of violence in industry Inadequate staff training in managing workplace violence Insufficient security

3.5. Managing workplace violence: perceptions of ability to control violence

Exposure to customers/ contact with the public

Bureaucracy/ organisational systems

isolation/remotely was also a key factor, and inadequate staff training in managing workplace was rated highly by health, construction and manufacturing sectors, suggesting a potential area for further intervention to reduce violence risk.

3.6. Managing workplace violence: control measures used by responding organisations

Workloads

Table 5 Perceived importance of organisational sources of violence (measured on 1-5 scale, 1 ¼ not important; 5 ¼ very important).

SD

T.A. Bentley et al. / Applied Ergonomics 45 (2014) 839e848

Inadequate safety management system/ risk management activity

844

T.A. Bentley et al. / Applied Ergonomics 45 (2014) 839e848

845

Table 6 Perceived importance of Environmental sources of violence (measured on 1-5 scale, 1 ¼ not important; 5 ¼ very important).

Agriculture, forestry and fishing Manufacturing Construction Transport, postal and warehousing Professional, scientific and technical Health care and social assistance Other services Other

Building/working area design/layout

Lighting/illumination/darkness

Cash on the premises/ in workplace

Valuable goods on the premises

The physical location of the workplace and/or community is in

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

1.67

0.52

1.33

0.52

1.67

1.63

1.17

0.41

2

0.89

1.59 1.78 1.78

0.91 0.83 1.39

1.27 1.22 1.56

0.55 0.44 1.33

1.27 1.22 1.44

0.94 0.67 1.33

1.45 1.44 1.56

0.96 0.73 1.33

1.86 2.33 1.78

1.36 1 1.39

1.8

1.1

1.8

1.1

1

0

1.2

0.45

2.2

1.79

1.67

0.82

1.83

0.98

1.33

0.52

1.33

0.52

2.33

1.03

1.25 2.06

0.45 1.14

1.33 1.88

0.65 1.17

1.5 1.88

0.8 1.27

1.5 2.24

0.9 1.48

2.08 2.35

1.31 1.54

also interesting to note that organisations from across a wide range of industry sectors, including some that did not report actual violence incidents, reported having at least one measure in place. Very few organisations used a combination of control measures in their violence prevention strategy with most relying instead on one, and occasionally, two control measures. However, across the sample a wide range of measures for violence prevention were reported as currently being in use with considerable variation by industry. These responses were content analysed and are presented in Table 7. A summary overview is also provided in Fig. 2, with general intervention categories used to map against each control dimension of the Catley et al. (2011) conceptual model. As shown in Table 7, many of the measures adopted by participants’ organisations were primary interventions and organisational in nature, including the use of anti-harassment policies, staff scheduling, improved supervision of some sites, better communications, drug and alcohol policies, and company risk registers. Other interventions were mainly technical, including

personal alarms, panic buttons, customer surveillance, and security barriers. 4. Discussion Approximately one-half of all respondents reported one or more cases of workplace violence in their organisation, a figure consistent with earlier New Zealand surveys (Bentley et al., 2013; Catley et al., 2011). These findings, together with those from international research, indicate a significant workplace violence problem across some industry sectors, notably, but not limited to, health care. A strong positive from the survey was the propensity for organisations to report attempted assault and minor violence injury cases. This suggests a positive culture in relation to the reporting of less serious workplace violence cases that should be encouraged as lost-time cases can be relatively uncommon in some sectors, thereby restricting the possibility for organisational learning towards the prevention of workplace violence.

Table 7 Control measures used by participating organisations by sector. Industry sector

Intervention category and type (Primary (P), Secondary (S), Tertiary (T)

Examples

Agriculture, forestry and fishing

Training (S) Emergency procedures (S) Policy (P) Reporting (P, S) Counselling and support (T) HR processes (P, T) Communication/awareness (P) Monitoring (P, S) Reporting system (P, S) Communication (P) Policy (P) Training (P, S) Reporting (P, S) Work organisation (P, S) Training (P, S) Hazard management (P) Technology and surveillance (P, S, T) Policy (P) Employee involvement (P) Technology and surveillance (P, S, T) Procedures (P, T) Training (S) Reporting (P, S) Planning (P) Environment (P) Work organisation (P) Procedures (P)

Supervisor training in dealing with emotional and physical response Emergency procedures for violence; Back up and support from management Anti-bullying policy; serious misconduct Procedures; Drug and alcohol policies Whistleblower Scheme (P, S) EAP services HR framework for investigation/disciplinary Induction handbooks, OHS manuals; open communication; conflict resolution Vigilance through supervision of employee relationships; personal possessions Incident reporting system e incident review and organisational learning from events Staff reporting their locations and times for external visits Employee complaints policy Staff training in violence management Easy access to police reporting procedures; Whistleblower scheme Movement of staff affected by violence or bullying Induction; Harassment and violence in the workplace training Violence a hazardous behaviour and subject to Control; violence included on hazard register Cameras in some areas; swipe key access Harassment and stress policies include violence Staff elected representative committee CT cameras Disciplinary procedures Training in dealing with difficult clients and strangers Monthly audits Planning work and anti-violence precautions Safe worksite, lighting, security Workload negotiation; female staff working in pairs in field/outdoors Code of conduct for communication with customers; night-work protocols; volatile situation protocol Cell phones for staff Communication defining policies, processes, support

Health care

Construction

Manufacturing

Transport, postal Utility services

Other

Technology (P, S) Communication (P)

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Fig. 2. Summary of respondent organisations’ violence control strategies, mapped against Catley et al.’s (2011) dimensions of violence control.

The finding that the source of violence/perpetrator of most concern to respondents varied by sector is unsurprising given previous research (Bentley et al., 2013; United States Department of Labour, 2006; cited in Dillon, 2012, p.16). Co-workers were commonly rated a lower risk than external or clients by some sectors, including health care (Chen et al., 2012; Kowalenko et al., 2013). These findings are contrary to common notions of coworker aggression often portrayed in the media, and suggest organisations should consider violence control measures that address all potential sources of workplace violence. The study identified a range of risk factors for workplace violence and sought to determine how each risk factor impacts on perceived violence risk for the different industry sectors represented in the study. In keeping with findings from the previous NZ workplace violence survey, this study has found that organisational, as well as interpersonal, risk factors are seen as an important source of risk for workplace violence (Chappell and Di Martino, 2006). Indeed, factors such as time pressure, workload and communication appear to be very important to violence risk, suggesting that poorly organised workplaces may be more prone to experiencing psychosocial problems such as violence and bullying (Skogstad et al., 2011) as a response to stress and uncertainty caused by factors such as poor management, work overload and constant change (Hoad, 1993; Howard and Wech, 2012; Jones et al., 2011). This information will be useful in the development of countermeasures to prevent the occurrence of workplace violence.

Some 44% of respondents reported that in their organisation the management of workplace violence was a priority. This finding is perhaps surprising given that the majority of respondents (75%) believed that their organisation was at low risk of violence. Possible explanations include the fact that a number of serious, high profile, violence events have been reported within the New Zealand media in recent years, heightening the awareness of the violence risk and resulting in organisational concern and action to reduce violence risk. Equally, the prioritisation of violence prevention management among the sample may reflect the risk management strategy of prioritising low frequency, high hazard/impact events such as physical violence. The survey identified the violence control measures currently used by respondents’ organisations. While an array of interventions were identified by respondents, just 50% of respondents’ organisation formally recognised violence as a hazard in the workplace, while only 28% of organisations had a specific hazard management plan to address workplace violence risk e a concern given the 50% of organisations reporting violence cases during the 12 month period of the analysis. These findings reflect those of international studies (Dillon, 2012) and suggest that violence management efforts may be out of step with the level of risk within organisations, particularly those within high-violence risk sectors. The findings of this study suggest that organisations may often rely on single interventions, addressing just one aspect of risk and

T.A. Bentley et al. / Applied Ergonomics 45 (2014) 839e848

control (e.g. training or technology), whereas the research suggests multiple aspects of risk and control should be considered if effective risk management for workplace violence prevention is to be implemented (Bentley et al., 2013; Bentley et al., 2011). Indeed, where the nature of the work undertaken in an organisation precludes or restricts the ability of managers to apply certain forms of control (e.g. environment or behaviour), it is crucial that this is compensated through improved work organisation measures and a focus on a positive health and safety culture with regard to violence prevention within the organisation. This is the area in which ergonomics can perhaps have greatest impact, through analysis of weaknesses in work systems with regard to violence, and particularly those features of task, environment and organisational design that create violence risk, and the development and evaluation of interventions to prevent workplace violence which account for the interacting work system factors. Further research is focusing on control efforts and the evaluation of effective prevention initiatives across high-violence risk sectors in New Zealand and elsewhere. The focus on organisational, rather than individual, level data has limited the sample size and the statistical generalisability of the study findings. However, it is argued that the benefits of an organisational-level perspective adds meaningfully to an on-going programme of research to better understand the extent and nature of violence in the New Zealand workplace, key risk factors for workplace violence and effective prevent measures. The authors acknowledge the possibility of bias in study sample due to the motivations of those responding, with individuals working in organisations that were contemplative of a violence problem or experiencing relatively high incidence of violence (or individual serious cases) more likely to respond to the survey. The sample included a relatively narrow range of industry types and there may have been bias towards medium and large companies where there are dedicated OHS positions. Indeed, smaller organisations are less likely to be on the Safeguard forum or have the time or inclination to participate in the survey. These limitations should be addressed through future research that should employ measures to recruit a wider range of organisations in the study, including smaller organisations, from a wider range of industry sectors. A larger sample would also provide sufficient data for multivarite analysis to determine the structural causal relationship between study variables. The adoption of a systems perspective to the workplace violence problem is important as it ensures narrow interpersonal interpretations of violence risk are not relied on, and encourages control strategies to address the full range of interacting work system factors contributing to workplace violence. The present study was limited in that it was unable to identify sub-system interactions in the analysis of violence risk, although this was considered in the analysis of prevention efforts of organisations through application of the violence control model. Further research is needed that examines in detail the interactive contribution of risk factors to actual violence cases. In this regard, ergonomics has much to offer towards an improved understanding of workplace violence and measures for its prevention. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge Safeguard Magazine for providing access to the Safeguard Forum for sample recruitment, and thank those members of the Safeguard Forum who responded to the 2012 New Zealand Workplace violence Survey.

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