What Are the Causes of Workplace Violence?

by K.A. Francis, Demand Media
Workplace violence can occur in any company, at any time. No one is immune.


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Workplace violence takes many forms and has many causes. Angered former employees, customers who feel wronged, stressed out employees or a conflict between co-workers can elevate to the point of a violent altercation in the office. Personal life does spill over into the workplace, and sometimes those personal issues present themselves at the office with dangerous consequences. Companies that recognize the potential for workplace violence are in the best position to prevent it.

Lack of Pre-employment Screening

Companies that do not conduct thorough background screenings on potential employees run the risk of hiring someone who could be prone to violence, or has a violent past. Although many companies are using psychological tests during the hiring process in an attempt to weed out the potentially violent candidates, the test is not full-proof and should not be substituted for a thorough background check.


As much as companies attempt to dictate this, employees do not leave their personal issues at the door. Stress, of a workplace and personal nature, can cause an employee to snap and lash out at at whomever the perceived enemy is. Overworking employees can create a hostile work environment, and if the employee is also battling personal issues, the combination can have disastrous, if not deadly, results.

Lack of Employee Assistance Program

An employee assistance program (EAP) can diffuse a situation with a potentially violent employee before the employee has a chance to act. Most employees become violent as a last resort--they feel no one is addressing or acknowledging their needs. With an EAP program in place, employees have an impartial party with whom they can discuss the stressors in their life and possibly receive the assistance or treatment they need before things escalate into violence.


Companies who take the approach that nothing bad, such as a disgruntled employee returning to do harm to his former boss, actually fuel the workplace violence fire. Ignorance of the potential for violence in an organization will cause an organization not to put proper safety and conflict resolution measures into place, leaving the organization vulnerable to such an attack from employees and customers, and lacking the tools to diffuse the situation.

Disgruntled Customers And Former Employees

A person who feels a company has wronged him in some way can lash out at the company. It could be a customer who feels he was cheated, or it could be an employee who was fired, laid off or wronged by a co-worker. The angry customer or employee who comes back and opens fire on the office is the most talked about type of workplace violence, but in actually, it is a very small percentage of the total cases.

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