Study Shows Risk of Workplace Violence on Federal Sites

Workplace violence is pervasive.  It can happen anywhere for dozens of reasons.   Intruders or thieves can resort to workplace violence.  A spurned lover or significant other may invade the workplace and inflict harm on his lover or others that try to protect her.

And then workplace violence comes from within. Disgruntled workers can inflict workplace violence for any number of motives, from being fired from the job to believing they were discriminated upon or being bullied.  Or in some cases they were just plain nuts or suffering from substance abuse.  They may be having domestic issues or financial problems, unrelated to the job itself that sets them off.

I have written about workplace violence on numerous occasions.  One such article is, When Workplace Violence Reaches Critical Mass.

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the United States Merit Systems Protection Board conducted a study on the likelihood of workplace violence in government facilities.

According to the MSPB….it said that its initial findings show that the risk of violence is not limited to organizations with such characteristics. “These groups are certainly at risk, but all federal organizations can be affected by workplace violence since one of the most common perpetrators of violence in the federal workplace are federal employees.

“Our initial findings also indicate that, although most federal employees believe their agencies take sufficient steps to ensure their safety from violence in the workplace, agencies may need to give more attention to preventing violence perpetrated by employees,” MSPB added.