Special report. Workplace violence: what all employers should know

Violence in the workplace has been declared a national epidemic by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, which found that homicide was the cause of death for an average of 750 workers annually between 1980 and 1989, making it the third leading cause of death in the workplace. Over 111,000 incidents of workplace violence were reported in 1992 alone. In its first-ever national census of workplace fatalities, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 1,004 workplace homicides in calendar year 1992. More than one-third of the 479 human resource professionals, responding to a recent survey by the Society of Human Resource Management, said incidents of violence had occurred where they work. Over half said that between two and five acts of violence were committed in their workplaces in the last five years. In this report, we'll present a number of approaches that all employers might consider in formulating programs for preventing incidents of violence.