Situational Awareness: Violence and Aggression

We all recognise that employees have the right to work without fear of violence and aggression, but many workers remain victim to such incidents.

The Health and Safety Executive define Workplace Violence and Agression (WVA) as incidents where a person is “abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work”. This can include physical, verbal, or psychological behaviours, and can have profoundly negative consequences on workers’ health and quality of life. Those affected report heightened anxiety, feeling helpless, chronic fatigue, and increased stress, among many other issues. WVA can also negatively affect those around victims, such as witnesses or the victim’s family and friends.

Research has suggested that WVA may occur more often than we think, as workers often do not report incidents when they happen. This could be for several reasons but, most notably, many workers feel that WVA is ‘just part of the job’ and have normalised such behaviours, or they may believe that nothing will come out of reporting it. Unfortunately, this means we may not know the full severity of WVA across the waste sector and the impact it is having on employees.

Looking at this research for the waste management sector, organisations have taken steps to support and engage with employees who wish to report incidents to implement preventative mechanisms to reduce WVA in the first place.

This video clip covers an approach to dealing with potential WVA events. The technique is referred to as ‘PALMS’ which allows employees to position themselves safely away from the confrontation, demonstrate the correct posture with a positive attitude, listen to their views, make space, and adopt a non-confrontational stance. It is always important to report the incident straight away.