The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 states that employers have a duty of care to their employees. Assessments must be carried out to identify the significant risks in the work place, which include the risk of employees’ being subjected to angry, aggressive or violent behaviour as part of their everyday duties. Needless to say, the security manager is likely to get involved in this type of risk assessment.
The likelihood of such violence impinges on companies in various ways. For organisations; aggression, violence, and their impact, can lead to low staff morale, high absenteeism and staff turnover.
For the staff themselves, it can cause physical and mental pain, stress, and disability. In the extreme, fatalities among staff can and do occur. These can all have a secondary effect on the success of the business.
It follows, therefore, that procedures and training relating to methods of preventing and coping with aggression and violence in the workplace are likely to have a positive effect upon personnel.
Risk Management
As noted earlier, risk assessments will help to determine the level of response required as part of preventative and protective measures. When these have been completed, a decision can be made with regard to the level of risk associated with each group of employees. The level of training required will depend upon the risk assessment of each employee’s work duties. This will generally reveal that the majority of staff will require minimum levels of training.
Every possible effort should be made to reduce the risk. By looking carefully at such issues as the sources of aggression, design of the environment, staffing patterns, strategies for promoting positive behaviour, noise and heat regulation, we can dramatically reduce the number of incidents that occur.
Conflict management
Conflict management falls into two main categories, non-physical intervention and physical intervention.
Non physical intervention training is relevant to all staff who may be subjected to abuse, threats, aggression, or any inappropriate or disruptive behaviour. This type of training fulfils the minimum requirement of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
Training should be designed to highlight the perceived or evident risks in the work place, and specific issues surrounding company policy and staff guidelines should be included as part of the training programme. This will ensure that no member of staff acts independently, or outside of the company’s operational guidelines.
The areas which should be covered:
The training also needs to cover responses to physical provocation and personal safety skills, taking in incident avoidance and awareness, initial approach, and positive body language.
It should include skills designed to help a member of staff to reduce the risk of escalation during the initial stages of physical provocation.
Remaining in control
In addition, it should enable staff to remain in control and communicate over a longer time, further reducing the possibility of the incidents requiring additional physical intervention. Staff should be taught how to separate themselves from grabs and holds in a calm and controlled manner.
This training has been proved to give staff a vital confidence boost. Confidence is one of the key points when managing angry, aggressive, or violent behaviour.
Physical intervention
Physical intervention training is only likely to be a consideration in certain industries and for personnel who have high risk-tasks, (e.g. security, airlines, health-care, custodial services) to perform as part of their duties.
This training is designed to give staff the skills required to intervene in an incident where a person is agitated and being physically aggressive or violent and someone’s safety is at risk. It is designed to prevent incidents escalating toward, more violent behaviour.
Physical intervention should only be used as a last resort and never as a matter of course. It should only be used in an emergency when there seems to be a real possibility that significant harm would occur if intervention is withheld.
Post incident management
It is necessary for management to monitor correctly all incidents, in particular those incidents where there has been any use of physical intervention. This will ensure that any intervention was in the best interests of everyone involved.
Post-incident reports and, in some instances, staff de-briefs, are necessary to help to identify problem-areas and to reduce staff stress levels. They also help managers to monitor and, where necessary, up-date policies and procedures, calculate manning-levels, and highlight potential future problems at an early stage.
