Zero tolerance has become the policy of choice for dealing with employee acts of workplace violence. But while it might be attractive as a statement of principle, zero tolerance can be hard to apply in actual situations. I'll wrap up this series by explaining the practical problems of zero tolerance and how to craft a policy to overcome them. There's also a Model Policy in the Tools section of SafetyXChange that you can adapt for your own workplace.

The Practical Limitations of Zero Tolerance

Zero tolerance is a rigid policy that works best in the most serious cases of workplace violence involving physical assault. After all, it's hard to defend giving employees who attack co-workers a second chance. The problem is that workplace violence often takes more subtle forms including threats and verbal/mental abuse. The severe penalties provided by zero tolerance may be too harsh for these offenses, especially if they occur on an isolated basis, rather than as part of a recurring pattern.

In addition, there may be mitigating circumstances or reasons that if they don't justify at least explain an employee's violent behavior. For example, maybe the employee was acting in self-defense or just engaging in horseplay. A company should be free to consider all of these things when deciding what to do and should not be boxed in by a zero tolerance policy.

Example

A pipe worker picks up a piece of iron pipe and swings it at a fellow crew member's head stopping at the very last second. Everybody realizes that it's a joke, albeit a stupid and dangerous one. The company thinks the worker should be warned and perhaps suspended for the prank but considers termination too harsh. After all, the worker has had a stellar record to this point. But the zero tolerance policy calls for immediate termination of workers who engage in or threaten violence against other workers. So the company has to choose between ignoring the policy and ignoring the offense.

It might seem easy for a company to simply ignore the policy and give the worker a break. But that could lead to unforeseen legal consequences: Letting one worker get away with an offense undermines the legitimacy of a zero tolerance policy and makes it harder to enforce on future occasions. "Consistency of enforcement is one of the key factors a court or arbitrator looks at in deciding whether to support a disciplinary action," explains a Chicago attorney.

Solution: How to Tailor a Workable Policy

All employers need to recognize that workplace violence is a safety issue and adopt a plan to manage it. The first step is to ban violent behavior. Two things to do:

Avoid Knee Jerk Zero Tolerance. Don't make termination automatic. Like the Model Policy in Tools does, you should give yourself leeway to investigate all the circumstances and impose whatever disciplinary action you consider appropriate up to termination.

Define Violence. Your workplace violence policy should clearly describe the forms of behavior that you consider unacceptable. Many people associate workplace violence with the use or threat of physical force. But the problem is much broader than that. It includes bullying, harassment, intimidation, affronts to dignity and the creation of a hostile or poisonous work environment. It also includes a wide array of conduct including acts, gestures and verbal comments.

Conclusion

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting for a moment that you exercise leniency with employees who engage in acts of workplace violence. Zero tolerance isn't just right-headed; it's right. What I am suggesting is that workplace violence is often subtle and may take different forms. It can be a sledgehammer or a fly swatter. To combat workplace violence effectively, your policy must be flexible enough to address both - as well as all of the other variations in-between.

HEROES OF WORKPLACE SAFETY

Daniel David Palmer

"http://www.safetyxchange.com/site_resources/aricles/palmer.jpg" width="200" height="267" class="border">

D.D. Palmer: Father of chiropractic.

By Glenn Demby

To some, he was a visionary genius whose defiance of medical convention revolutionized the science of healing. To others, he was a dangerous and delusional quack.

Daniel David (D.D.) Palmer was born in Ontario in 1845. At age 20, Palmer moved to Iowa and took up beekeeping and other ventures before settling into farming. But Palmer's true passion was science and natural healing. He opened a "magnetic healing practice" and got rich.

An avid reader and researcher, Palmer theorized that disease was the result of shifts in the spine that altered pressure on the nerves. Just about all diseases could be cured by manipulating the spine. The form of treatment Palmer would go on to invent would become known as "chiropractic" from the Greek words cheir, meaning "hand" and praktos, or "done."

It was on this date - September 18 - in 1895, that Palmer performed his first chiropractic procedure. He purported to restore the hearing of a janitor who had been deaf for 17 years by adjusting one of the patient's vertebrae. Palmer saw chiropractic not merely as a medical but a religious undertaking. The self-described "fountain head" of chiropractic, he claimed to be like "Christ, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Mrs. Eddy and others who have founded religions."

Palmer and his theories were controversial. Palmer was prosecuted and jailed for six months in 1906 for practicing medicine without a license. He died in 1913 but the school he founded in Davenport, Iowa in 1897, the Palmer School of Cure has survived. Today it is known as the Palmer College of Chiropractic. The art of chiropractic has prospered and is today the most widely practiced form of alternative healing in the U.S.

Story Tools:  Email This Post  Print This Post Top