Aggression in the Workplace

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This process usually occurs under a great deal of pressure to respond quickly. There are generally some very real limitations, in terms of available time and resources. Good decision-making involving critical issues of safety have to be balanced with the need to come to decisions relatively quickly, and often with limited data. A trained response team, operating with an understanding of the appropriate protocol and with access to the required resources, is better able to keep these concerns in balance and manage the situation safely.

It is not the purpose of this volume to train the threat response team or to offer a detailed review of the threat assessment and management process. While this book is offered as a general guide to organizations, it cannot also serve as a menu for the threat response process. There is no substitute for having a workplace violence program in place that includes a trained team, with access to available specialists. Each and every situation offers a different and generally unique framework of factors that need to be understood before they can be adequately managed. What I will present is an outline of the process as it generally occurs, but the reader should keep in mind that this is a fluid process that has to adapt and respond to the dynamics of the given situation.

A guiding principle throughout this process is to not over-respond and create a greater risk. While decisions may have to be made quickly, careful planning is critical. Time spent gathering information, in order to formulate a safe plan of approach, is generally time well spent. It will be always important to proceed carefully and in a step-wise manner.  Any response or decision to intervene in any manner, even if just to interview particular individuals, should be carefully considered in light of any potential consequences that could serve to increase the risk to a member of the organization. Any response or decision should err on the side of caution and represent the least intrusive or disruptive option.

The initial review: gathering the facts

Once a report of a threat is received by the team or the team leader, the first order of business generally involves collecting information, in order to confirm and obtain the relevant details of the allegations. The initial reports have often already been skewed or distorted, and have not been subjected to any kind of confirmation process.

It is critical that decisions are based on accurate data. Effective threat management relies on an accurate assessment, and accurate assessment is dependent on accurate information. Operating on bad information will sabotage the most carefully prepared plans and can serve to catch us off guard with a suddenly unanticipated set of consequences.

Initially, the team leader, or the team member who is coordinating the particular case, is responsible for obtaining any available information, in order to make some of these initial decisions. This process would typically involve interviewing the individual who made the

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sexual intimacies with their victims being much higher. This is quite significant, as it represents a very high rate of violence, when compared to other risk groups. Even without this relatively high rate of physical violence, stalking always, at the very least, represents a particular form of aggression: a prolonged (and sometimes recurring) set of actions that harass and intimidate their victims, who are often forced to live under a chronic level of distress and fear.

Stalking and the Workplace

Stalking in the workplace can take many forms and for a variety of different reasons.  It may involve one employee stalking another employee, or an employee may be a victim of stalking from someone outside the organization. There may have been an existing or a previous relationship from which the victim cannot successfully disengage.  It may involve a spouse or significant other who is not employed by the company, but who stalks their partner at the workplace because that is the only time that they can successfully locate the victim. 

Stalking can occur due to a delusional belief system, in which someone believes that they have a relationship with the victim that is not based in reality or shared by the victim. These delusions can be the result of a variety of psychological factors that can in turn be manifestations of various personality, cognitive and/or emotional disorders. Finally, stalking can occur as a consequence of predatory behaviors that are related to significant antisocial personality characteristics.

Utilizing a typology established by Mike Zona and John Lane (1993), stalking can be classified into 3 categories, all of which can be experienced within the workplace:

The simple obsessional,

The love obsessional

The erotomanic&