Research Report Summary - Keeping the Workplace Safe from Threats

Exclusive research from HR.com and Paycom

       

There is a virtual consensus among HR professionals that organizations have a duty to protect employees from workplace threats, according to new research conducted by HR.com in partnership with Paycom.

The question isn’t about whether to protect employees, but how it should be done. To find out more about how organizations are going about this, a survey called “Making the Workplace a Safe Space” gleaned responses from 890 HR professionals. More specifically, the survey investigated the following questions:
 

Below are some key findings from the study.

Not only do employers have a duty to protect employees, HR plays a major role in fulfilling this duty. HR professionals view themselves as playing a very important role in keeping the workplace safe. This by no means suggests that HR is the only group with an important role, but it does answer the question as to whether HR itself is expected to step up and be a leader in addressing this issue. HR leaders should embrace this role and understand that it is expected of them.

Former employees were most often viewed as an organizational threat, followed by people not affiliated with respondent organizations (17%).
There are many categories of people or groups of people who could pose a workplace threat, including employees, former employees, clients, unaffiliated people (such as a criminal committing a robbery) and so on.

The important step for HR is to accept there are many different groups who could present a threat. Threat analysis should consider each of the different groups, what threats they might pose, and how to mitigate those threats.

The good news in managing workplace threats is that there are often warning signs. In fact, on average, well over half of HR professionals point to five perceived warning signs. HR should stay aware of such warning signs and document them as needed.

Training employees is associated with safer workplaces. Large organizations that are perceived as safe are more likely to train employees to spot warning signs than organizations perceived as less safe (83% vs. 62%). The same pattern holds for mid-sized and small organizations.

HR can’t be everywhere all the time, so it is helpful if managers and employees can spot the warning signs of workplace threats.

This is an area where there are substantial differences by size. Almost three-quarters of large organizations and over half of mid-sized organizations train managers and/or employees to identify these warning signs. Among small organizations, 44% provide such training.

If HR can create a level of basic awareness about possible warning signs, it will have a better chance of learning about issues before they escalate into serious problems.

If HR professionals are taking responsibility for overseeing the organization’s capability for dealing with workplace threats, then it’s likely that, sooner or later, leadership will want more information on the number and types of threats that are arising. A majority of all HR professionals say their organization collects such data, whereas a quarter do not, and 19% say they are not sure.

Finding #6: Safe workplaces are more likely than less safe ones to have a crisis management group (43% versus 25%) and crisis management plan (54% versus 40%)

When a threat is imminent or in progress, it is a crisis. A crisis management group is usually responsible for developing plans so the organization knows how to respond to crises and is ready to deal with a crisis should one arise. Safe workplaces are more likely than less safe ones to have a crisis management group (43% versus 25%). Safer workplaces are also more likely to have crisis management plan, though the differences in this area are not as large (54% versus 40%).

To learn more about the findings, check out our exclusive research.