There are several factors contributing to employee stress and violence in the workplace. Employers’ have legal and ethical obligations to prevent stress and violence in the workplace. There are many ways to prevent stress and violence in the workplace. In this article, we discuss how performance management can prevent stress and violence in the workplace.
Stress Factors
Stress factors vary from workplace to workplace. Employees with part-time work schedules and those who work in the retail industry experience different stress factors than those working in full-time roles. Work hours can be unpredictable for employees with part-time work schedules, contributing to stress regarding finances. Other factors include job insecurity, low pay, lack of benefits, insufficient training, and little promotion opportunities. An example is work environments dominated by males or work environments where sex segregation is present. Physical work factors contributing to stress include physical exertion, repetitive tasks, and an overall physical work environment. Lastly, demographic and personal traits such as age, sex, and dependents contribute to stress in the workplace.
Stress factors in an office-type setting where employees are full-time include work overload, lack of power or reduced power, role ambiguity, and problems within the role. Any threats to an employee’s career development and goal attainment also add to the stress. Factors such as threats of redundancy, feeling undervalued, and vague promotion opportunities are stress factors. Physical conditions contributing to stress are noise, crowded work areas, and lack of privacy. Lastly, issues between work and homes such as no work-life balance or work impacting home life can also feel stressful to employees.
Violence Factors
Several factors are contributing to violence in the workplace. Before diving in, it is essential to discuss aggression and violence. Aggression is the act of violence, and violence is the consequence of the act. Violence is the extreme form of aggression and is a harmful, hostile, severe, and extreme disturbance to a person or property. Organizational structure has influential power on the members of the organization. The formal organizational structure includes characteristics of the organization like the hierarchy, rules, processes, and reward system. The other organizational structure is less formal and consists of social structures and interactions. An organizational structure aims to set goals and expectations, clarify jobs and job tasks, and manage behavior. Adverse outcomes of organizational structure such as isolation, mundane day-to-day, and contention can lead to violence in the work environment. A company’s reward and incentives can also influence violence.
Tobin (2001) discusses the theoretical model of violence in the workplace, which starts with frustration and ends with violence. When an employee experiences interference with attaining their goal, goal-related tasks, or goal maintenance, they typically experience frustration. Spector (1975) stated that the more frustration an employee feels, the more likely they react with aggression. If the goal attainment becomes disrupted continually, then the employee is at risk for escalation towards violence. The early signs of frustration include identifying and using another way to achieve set goals. A second sign is to partake in aggression toward the company or a co-worker. The third sign of frustration is withdrawal and isolation.
The second step towards violence is conflict, which occurs if an employee feels stuck in the frustration stage for an extended period. Any dispersal and use of power in the organization is a distinct area of conflict. Conflict can arise due to various roles, behaviors, organizational structures, biases and stereotypes, and lack of resources. If an employee is in the conflict stage, they are at risk of withdrawing, changing their goals, or becoming aggressive.
The third stage is aggression. Social learning theory stated that mistreated or unfairly treated employees were likely to act aggressively. If an employee feels mistreated by an organization, they are at higher risk of exerting aggression towards the organization or a co-worker. The act of violence is considered the last attempt to terminate the hindrance or cause of the undesirable feeling.
Legal and Ethical Employer Obligations
Employers have a legal and ethical obligation to prevent stress and violence in the workplace. They should know the signs of stress and violence and act accordingly. Brakel (1998) stated that the pure threat of legal liability should motivate employers to take preventative measures or intervene to decrease stress or stop aggressive behavior and create a safer and healthier workplace. The civil tort law of negligent conduct involves the employer’s failure to keep the workplace safe from any threats of violence. The law also includes the employer’s obligation not to hire or retain people who commit violence. Employers should exert control in the employment relationship and prevent any potential violent occurrences. Employees who are victims of violence in the workplace can sue the employer for negligent hiring practices, negligent hiring, inattentive supervision, negligent retention, and not listening to recommendations made by other organizations against a potential candidate.
The employer is also liable through agency law, which states that the employer is responsible for actions taken by their employees. The liability rests on the employment relationship. As long as the violent action happened during employment and the behavior can be the reason for the victim’s injury.
Another binding legal obligation is the contractual liability that employers are liable for any employee misconduct that leads to third-party injury. Civil rights laws indicate another legal obligation and state that in the condition that an employer was informed about or should have known about a harassment situation, primarily based on race, sex, religion, nationality, or disability, and did not take the appropriate action to stop it, then they can be found liable. The act states that employer knowledge is unnecessary since they can be found liable on strict liability theory.
Performance Management and Stress and Violence
Appropriate performance management can prevent stress and violence in the workplace. Supervisors should be aware the violence in the workplace is a product of a process inside an employee’s head where they think they have been mistreated, discriminated against, placed under stress, or harassed. Increased communication by the supervisor with the employee can help decrease violence by communicating that decisions made are not personal. Supervisors should also pay attention to any changes in employees, such as in their home life. If an employee is going through a stressful situation at home, they are likely to be distracted or withdrawn. Change, in general, can be stressful for employees, which can bring about changes in their behavior and is usually a sign of stress.
A helpful tactic when mitigating stress is to increase or improve communication with employees. The supervisor should understand that they are conflict managers when needed and should create and have people-sensitive plans for any situations like downsizing or terminating employees. The supervisor should also decrease stress on the job as needed and challenge employees. One component of a supervisor’s job is to delegate appropriately. Ineffective delegation could hinder the quality of work, team morale, and the development of subordinates. When a task gets delegated to an employee, the supervisor should give them time to complete the task independently. As the supervisor delegates tasks, they should be aware of the current workload of the subordinate. If subordinates fail to complete tasks assigned to them, the supervisor should check-in and see what else they can do to help, such as providing more explicit instructions or resources and tools. The supervisor should also be careful with whom they delegate tasks. It is equally important to be cognizant of the delegated tasks. Some tasks are not appropriate for direct-reports to complete.