Violence in the workplace is quickly becoming the buzz word of the time. Most governments are now considering legislation that will force companies to deal with these issues in order to improve workplace safety. Take bill 168 in the province of Ontario Canada that is currently before the legislator.

The Bill under the health and safety act requires an employer to assess the risk of workplace violence that may arise from the nature of the workplace, the type of work or the conditions of work.  the assessment must take into account common risks at other similar workplaces and risks specific to the employer’s workspace.  A copy of the risk assessment and its results must be provided to the joint health and safety committee or health and safety representative. If there is no committee or representative, employees must be advised how to obtain copies of the assessment and its results and it must be provided to workers on request.

A good strategy to stay ahead of this pending legislation should include the following

• An overview and understanding of the legislation and or pending legislation that emphasis key components and legal duties of your organization.
• Recognized and approved best security practices for conducting workplace violence risk assessments
• Putting workplace violence in perspective with other security issues in your organization
• The categories of workplace violence and how each one requires different mitigation actions
• Steps to creating a court defensible workplace violence program
• Workplace Violence Risk Assessment – more than checklists
• Written and implementation plan of  effective policies and procedures that work
• Training programs – what works and what doesn’t – getting buy-in from the beginning
• Incident management – the multidisciplinary team approach
• Mitigating the impact of incidents to minimize the impact on your operations
• Case management – how proper recording and analyzing incident reports can enable you to take proactive preventive steps to prevent future incidents
• Supporting the victims of workplace violence to minimize the effect on the workplace

There is little doubt that given the current stresses we are all exposed to, employers need to create a safer  workplace for its employees and if it takes government intervention to do so than count me in as a supporter.

Rene Beaulieu CPP

President

SECURaGLOBE Solutions Inc

rene@securaglobe.com

www.securaglobe.com

1-866-767-4111