workplace violence

denjen

If there is a fight that breaks out, how should a supervisor react?
I' m clear on after the dust settles. Participants are suspended while an investigation is held and only with cool heads are the consequences dealt out.

My question is how should I coach supervisors to act when a fight is going on? Do they break it up? Stay out of it and call police? Pull one off? Throw water on them?

System

This is a great question for me. I have never dealt with this type of employee behavior, but will stay tuned to learn how others have handled these situations.

ray a

Think about the consequences of various actions. Suppose you do nothing and let the fight continue and one of the fighters is injured. Now you may have a WC case or worse yet, a lawsuit because you didn't provide adequate protection. Call the police? How far away are they? In my case they are next door and can be here in 5 minutes or less. What if they can't get there in a reasonable amount of time and again someone is injured? What if one of the fighters ends up with a weapon? Now those intervening are at risk.

We have had guys square off, but fortunately nothing severe. The supervisor or coworkers intervened and separated the guys to cool down then we did the investigation.

Paul in Cannon Beach

I can't imagine a scenario where you would want a supervisor standing by while two employees pummel eachother into the ground.

Having never faced this situation though, my guess would be that you would seek to get personnel on hand who were physically able to safely intervene and seperate the fighting employees.

If your work environment is such that its probable you might deal with this situation, you could consider designating a response team of cool headed individuals who would be authorized to get involved quickly if tempers started to flare.

An ideal team would have a couple of calm, big guys. But I would also have some females on the team. I could envision situations where a female might be more effective in getting two hot heads to seperate.

Ideally, though, I would be regularly communicating that violence in the workplace will not be tolerated and anyone who starts a fight at work will be looking for a job the next day.

HRQ

Many years ago I took a training class on how to diffuse the situation with irate customers. They taught a few techniques to calm someone down without getting physical. It might be helpful to put supervisors through similar training.

I worked in a hotel and I would occasionally have to deal with drunk angry customers. It's not exactly the same as what you are asking about, but the techniques would be useful in any volatile situation. Regardless of the physical size of the supervisor on duty, they will need these skills.

If possible, I would also make sure supervisors have radios or cell phones on them at all times. We used them often at the hotel to call for "back up" or report that a situation may be getting out of hand.

Supervisors should be advised that they should physically intervene only if a) they feel safe doing so, and b) they can maintain a level head and not become part of the fracas.

System

>An ideal team would have a couple of calm, big guys. But I would also have
>some females on the team. I could envision situations where a female might be
>more effective in getting two hot heads to seperate.

I can also envision situations where a woman would be physically strong enough to separate the fighting employees (particularly if Paul was one of the fighters - ha, ha). Not to mention that there may be situations where the fighting employees are women.

ray a

Careful Kimberly, Paul may come east to challenge you to an arm wrestling match. I hear he carries a paintball gun at all times for protection.

stilldazed

I agree that you should consider the circumstances and that a single, cookie-cutter answer is probably not available. Obviously, you don't want anyone in harm's way, and you don't want to tell supervisors to step into the middle of all brawls regardless of what is actually going on (punching, cutting, pushing, etc). You also don't want to let two have a free for all while waiting for security or the police. I have to ask whether your question is hypothetical or a real possibility. If its hypothetical, is a concrete answer in a training situation necessary? If it's real, maybe your company should review your hiring process and cull out folks with proven track records. I've had a few instances of conduct that might be considered violence in the workplace, but my finding has been that maturity and peer pressure will usually prevail and the 'contact' part of the violence will not move beyond a little pushing or yelling. When it has happened, coworkers and supervisors alike have stepped in to get the misbehavers separated and moved to separate quiet areas. Hopefully, most of your folks understand that violence at work is never acceptable. I think most every worker does after all the news coverage we've grown accustomed to seeing in recent years. My finding has been that even enemies of the fighters will step in to separate a conflict because no one wants the conflict to escalate any further.

Paul in Cannon Beach

Hey Denjen,

You posted the original question. Have you had some previous incidents of violence in the workplace? Is your work environment prone to such issues?

denjen

We are on the preventative side of violence. We are a manufacturer with a very laid back atmosphere. But because the building allows us to be spread out, I want to prepare the supervisors if they come up on this. A supervisor saw in a WC prevention book to not break up a fight or restrict someone. I personally have not found the quote and don't agree.

The only case I can remember at the property occurred when two women were suspended and one waited for the other in the parking lot to duke it out. Yes she was terminated of course.

We hire based on past behavior. Some of the employees are just out of high school. Well, emotions can get the best of a person when you've worked a 10 hour shift.

Besides training is best when given before you need the information.

Paul in Cannon Beach

My personal opinion is that the majority of fights can be prevented. My reasoning is that these fights are often the result of an escalating situation involving people with maturity issues who dont really want to fight. The words and anger escalates until they get to a point of no return and things become physical.

But my guess is that most of these fights involve at least one participant who really doesn't want to fight but is unable to escape the situation without losing face. If that's the case, I think intervention would actually be welcomed.

Does that make sense? Of course, our workplace is very calm and so I am basing my theory from observations at family reunions.

denjen

LOL - HaHa Could we be going to the same reunions?

Thank you for all the insight. This is my most used website.