Workplace Violence Prevention Program: Build a Program That Does More Than Check a Box

Workplace violence remains a serious threat to employee safety. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 470 workplace homicides in 2024, while AlertMedia’s own 2025 Employee Safety Report found that roughly 20% of full-time employees in the U.S. and U.K. had experienced workplace violence.

Those numbers capture only part of the problem, as many workplace violence incidents go unreported. Employees may stay silent because they are unsure what qualifies as a reportable concern, do not know where to report it, or fear the consequences of getting involved.

That makes preventing workplace violence as much an operational challenge as a safety priority. A policy sitting in a shared drive will do little when a supervisor receives a concerning threat, an employee’s abusive partner appears in the parking lot, or a customer becomes aggressive at one of your locations.

An effective program gives your people clear ways to identify hazards, report concerns, respond to an immediate threat, and improve safeguards as risks change.

While a massive altercation might be extremely rare, many employees have experienced clashes caused by opposing personalities, leadership style differences, or personal issues. Stressful situations such as employee layoffs or firings can also cause people to lash out, and aggressive customers or members of the public can cause severe harm without mitigation practices. Between the rising rate of violence and the increasing legal requirements on businesses, it’s prudent for organizations to do everything in their power to reduce the risk of escalation.

Fortunately, there are concrete and practical actions employers can take to help prevent these events from impacting their place of business. This post will cover how to create a plan to prevent workplace violence, fulfill your legal obligations, and improve workplace safety overall.

What Is Workplace Violence Prevention?

Workplace violence prevention is the process of identifying, reducing, and managing threats of violence that could affect employees, contractors, customers, or visitors.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as acts or threats of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening behavior that occur at a worksite. Incidents can range from verbal threats and intimidation to physical assault and homicide.

Threats can come from several sources. They may involve criminal intent, customer or client aggression, worker-on-worker violence, or a personal relationship that carries over into the workplace. For example, a field employee might face aggression from a customer. A former employee could threaten a manager. An employee experiencing domestic violence may report that an abusive former partner has begun appearing near the office. Each situation requires a different response, but all fall within an organization’s broader safety responsibilities.

At the federal level, OSHA’s General Duty Clause requires employers to maintain a safe work environment free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. While there is no federal OSHA standard specific to workplace violence, OSHA says employers can reduce risk through a well-designed prevention program supported by appropriate controls, training, and incident response procedures.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) provides additional research and prevention guidance. NIOSH notes that workplace violence can affect workers in any setting, although some groups face a greater risk. Fatal violence is more common in occupations such as sales, protective services, and transportation, while healthcare and social assistance workers face the highest risk of nonfatal violence resulting in days away from work.

NIOSH also provides targeted resources for higher-risk environments, including healthcare and retail settings. Its research helps employers understand how factors such as frequent public interaction, working alone, limited security, and exposure to volatile situations can increase risk.

Together, OSHA and NIOSH give employers a strong foundation for preventing workplace violence. OSHA provides the framework for building a formal program, while NIOSH research helps organizations better understand where risks may arise and which workers may need additional protections.

Here’s what OSHA says a program should include.

OSHA’s Framework: The 7 Elements of a Workplace Violence Prevention Program

OSHA’s guidance provides a useful framework for turning broad safety goals into an operational program—one built around seven practical elements. Addressing each gives employers a structured foundation for preventing, detecting, and responding to workplace violence.

1. Management commitment

Leadership sets the expectations for the entire program.

Executives should assign responsibility for managing workplace violence risks, provide appropriate resources, and make it clear that reported concerns will receive a response. Security teams, human resources, legal, facilities, business continuity, and local managers should understand where their responsibilities begin and end.

For a multi-site organization, this also means establishing consistent standards across locations while allowing individual sites to address their specific risks.

A corporate office with controlled badge access, for example, will have different vulnerabilities than a customer-facing branch or warehouse operating overnight. Leadership should provide the common framework and give local teams a clear process for identifying additional controls they need.

2. Employee involvement

Your employees often see problems before corporate security or HR does. They may notice repeated confrontations with a customer, threats made during a dispute, unsafe conditions in a parking area, or a pattern of intimidating behavior from a coworker.

Give employees a meaningful role in identifying those concerns.

That can include employee safety committees, anonymous reporting mechanisms, post-drill feedback, surveys, and opportunities to flag risks during workplace assessments.

Employee involvement also improves trust. People are more likely to report a concern when they know what will happen after they speak up and believe someone will take the report seriously.

3. Worksite analysis and hazard assessment

A risk assessment helps you identify where violent incidents could occur, who may be exposed, and which controls you already have in place.

Review risks such as:

• Public access to employees or restricted areas
• Employees working alone or after hours
• Poor lighting in parking lots, entrances, or other exterior areas
• Previous threats, assaults, or security incidents
• Jobs that involve handling money or valuable property
• Regular interaction with angry or distressed customers
• Gaps in access control or visitor management
• Remote or isolated worksites
• Processes for layoffs, terminations, or other potentially contentious employment actions

Your assessment should also consider threats originating within the organization. An insider threat assessment can help you evaluate concerning behavior involving employees, contractors, or others with authorized access and determine whether additional investigation or security measures are needed.

Review previous incidents and near misses as part of the assessment. If an employee reported being followed through a parking garage, for example, look beyond the individual event. Consider lighting, camera coverage, access controls, security staffing, reporting procedures, and whether employees received timely information about the threat.
That turns an incident into information you can use to reduce future risk.

4. Hazard prevention and control

Once you know where your vulnerabilities are, determine how you will reduce them.

Controls may include physical security measures such as access control systems, improved lighting, surveillance cameras, secured reception areas, duress or panic buttons, and barriers between employees and the public.

Administrative controls matter too. You might establish procedures for handling aggressive customers, escorting employees to their vehicles, responding to domestic violence concerns, managing visitors, or involving security during a high-risk termination.

The appropriate controls depend on the hazard. A panic button may help a receptionist summon assistance during an escalating encounter. A distributed field workforce may need a way to request help from locations where no security team is nearby.

Review controls whenever your organization opens a new site, changes operating hours, restructures a facility, or experiences an incident that exposes a gap.

5. Safety training and education

Employees need to know what your program expects from them before an emergency occurs.

Training should cover the risks employees are reasonably likely to encounter and the actions appropriate to their roles. That may include:

• Recognizing and reporting threatening behavior
• De-escalation and conflict resolution
• Emergency communication procedures
• Active shooter drills and preparedness
• Run, Hide, Fight protocols and when to apply each
• Evacuation and shelter procedures
• When and how to contact law enforcement
• How managers should escalate employee concerns
• How to request immediate assistance
• What to expect after filing a report
• Basic employee first aid training and what to do when professional medical help hasn’t arrived yet

Managers need additional training because employees often bring concerns to them first.

Bryan Strawser, Principal and Chief Executive at Bryghtpath, described what the training should emphasize on The Employee Safety Podcast: “For team leaders and managers, they need to understand how to manage the threat of workplace violence.”

Managers should also know where to escalate a report rather than trying to assess a potentially serious threat on their own.

Training should be recurring and reinforced through exercises, discussions, and drills. It matters most before an incident occurs. When people have practiced what to do, they’re less likely to freeze and more capable of making fast decisions under pressure.

6. Recordkeeping

Documentation helps you understand whether your program is working.

Maintain records appropriate to your organization and applicable requirements, which may include:

• Incident and threat reports
• Investigation findings
• Corrective measures
• Training completion records
• Risk assessment results
• Reports of near misses
  Security or safety committee recommendations

Some workplace violence injuries may also meet federal OSHA recordkeeping requirements. In general, a work-related injury or illness is recordable when it results in outcomes such as death, days away from work, restricted work, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant diagnosed injury or illness.

Do not treat documentation as a filing exercise. If several locations report the same types of workplace violence, that pattern should inform training, staffing, physical security, or operational changes.

State requirements may also impose additional planning or recordkeeping obligations. California employers, for example, should review SB 553 California requirements and related state guidance.

7. Program evaluation

Review the program regularly to determine where it needs to change.

Look at reported incidents, employee feedback, drill results, response times, training completion, recurring hazards, and corrective actions. Consider whether employees know how to report concerns and whether managers consistently escalate them.

You should also revisit the program after a significant event, organizational change, facility move, acquisition, or major change in working conditions.

A program that accurately reflected your risks two years ago may miss the threats your employees face today.

Recognizing Warning Signs and Risk Factors

Recognizing a potential problem does not mean trying to predict who will become violent. Instead, teach employees and managers to identify observable behaviors and circumstances that warrant attention.

Behavioral warning signs

Threatening behavior can include verbal, written, physical, or digital conduct that communicates an intent to harm, intimidates another person, or creates reasonable concern for someone’s safety.

Potential warning signs may include:

• Direct or indirect threats
• Verbal abuse or repeated intimidation
• Escalating aggression or hostility
• Threatening messages, gestures, or statements
• Fixation on a grievance accompanied by threatening behavior
• Harassment or stalking
• Repeated confrontations that increase in intensity
• Concerning changes in behavior combined with threats or other observable warning signs
• Significant attendance or performance changes when accompanied by escalating conflict or threatening conduct

Employees should report behavior that concerns them rather than deciding for themselves whether someone poses a genuine threat.

That distinction matters. The goal is to give qualified security, HR, or insider threat assessment personnel enough information to evaluate the situation.

Workplace risk factors

Risk also comes from the circumstances surrounding the workplace.

NIOSH identifies criminal intent, client-on-worker incidents, worker-on-worker violence, and personal relationship violence as common categories.

Consider how those risks could appear in your organization.

A customer may threaten an employee after being denied service. A conflict between coworkers may escalate into intimidation. Someone with no connection to the organization may enter a location during a robbery. Domestic violence may spill into the workplace when a partner or former partner threatens an employee.

Your risk assessment should account for each type that could realistically affect your workforce.

Responding to Workplace Violence: Immediate Action and Post-Incident Recovery

Even a strong prevention program cannot eliminate every threat. Your organization also needs clear procedures for managing an incident when one occurs.

The response should cover three phases: immediate action, investigation and documentation, and employee recovery.

When an incident occurs: immediate response protocols

Employees should know who can activate your emergency response and how they will receive instructions.

Depending on the incident, immediate actions may include:

• Calling 911 or local law enforcement
• Activating onsite security
• Sending an emergency notification
• Evacuating, sheltering, or applying Run, Hide, Fight protocols based on the threat
• Accounting for employees
• Restricting access to an affected location
• Providing first aid when it is safe to do so
• Giving employees clear instructions as conditions change

An emergency notification system serves as the communication backbone of this response and should connect directly to your broader emergency action plan.

Imagine a threat reported at the front entrance of a large corporate campus. An email sent to the entire company may arrive too late and provide irrelevant information to employees elsewhere. A targeted emergency notification can immediately reach at-risk employees, tell them what action to take, and give leaders a way to confirm their safety.

Build those communication procedures into your broader emergency action plan and practice them before you need them.

Post-incident investigation and documentation

Once the immediate danger has passed, determine what happened and why.

Collect available information from employees, witnesses, security systems, incident reports, and other relevant sources. Document the sequence of events, the organization’s response, and any workplace violence hazards the investigation identifies.

Then determine which corrective measures are necessary.

For example, if an unauthorized visitor entered an employee-only area because a door failed to latch, replacing the hardware would address the immediate physical security threat. The investigation should also determine whether inspection procedures, reporting processes, or other controls allowed the problem to persist.

Documenting those findings in an after-action report creates a feedback loop between incident response and prevention.

Supporting employees after an incident

Employees may need continued support after experiencing or witnessing violence.

Make sure they know how to access available resources, such as an employee assistance program, trauma counseling, medical support, leave, or other benefits.

Managers should also receive guidance on return-to-work considerations and how to communicate with affected teams.

Support should be easy to access. Employees dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic event should not have to search an intranet or ask multiple departments to find help.

A structured emergency action plan helps you establish these responsibilities before an incident puts your team under pressure.

A template can help you formalize the response roles, notification steps, documentation requirements, and employee support pathways described above.

Download the Workplace Violence Response Plan Template

Building Your Workplace Violence Prevention Plan

A workplace violence prevention plan provides a structure for your policies, responsibilities, and response procedures that employees and leaders can follow.

At a high level, your plan should define:

• Policy and purpose: State the organization’s commitment to safety awareness and expectations for workplace conduct.
• Scope: Define who the plan covers, which locations, work activities, and situations it applies to.
• Roles and responsibilities: Identify responsibilities across security, human resources, leadership, managers, facilities, legal, and employees.
• Reporting procedures: Explain how employees can report threats, concerning behavior, and incidents, including urgent and confidential reporting options.
• Assessment and escalation: Establish who evaluates reports and when security, HR, a threat assessment team, or law enforcement becomes involved.
• Emergency response procedures: Document communication, evacuation, shelter, employee accountability, and other immediate actions.
• Training: Define what employees and managers need to learn and how often training takes place.
• Employee support: Include employee assistance programs, conflict resolution resources, and post-incident support.
• Documentation: Specify how the organization records incidents, investigations, training, and corrective measures.
• Review cycle: Establish when you will reassess risks and update the plan.

Your workplace violence prevention policy should also make it clear that employees can raise legitimate safety concerns without retaliation and that it aligns with your broader approach to insider risk management.

A plan provides the structure. Your employees determine whether that structure works in practice.

Creating a Culture of Prevention

Employees are far more likely to report a concerning interaction when they trust the process behind the report.

That requires more than publishing a zero-tolerance policy.

Matt Doherty, Managing Director of Workforce Risk Management at Sikich, warned on The Employee Safety Podcast that overly punitive policies can discourage people from speaking up: “There’s a lack of reporting because of the punitive nature of the policies.”

The point is not to accept threatening or abusive behavior. Set clear expectations and consequences, and provide employees with a safe way to share information before a situation escalates.

You can support that security culture by:

• Providing confidential or anonymous reporting mechanisms
• Explaining what employees should report
• Training managers to receive concerns without dismissing or escalating the conflict
• Giving employees feedback when possible after they make a report
• Providing clear conflict resolution pathways
• Making employee assistance program resources easy to find
• Reviewing reports for recurring concerns or systemic problems
• Asking employees about safety during assessments and after drills

Effective communication matters here. Employees should understand both how to report and why early reporting helps.

Consider an employee who receives increasingly aggressive messages from a former partner and is worried that person may appear at work. If the employee trusts the reporting process, security may have an opportunity to brief reception staff, adjust access controls, coordinate an escort, or take other appropriate precautions.

If the employee expects judgment or punishment, your security team may learn about the threat only after the person arrives.

That is why employee involvement belongs at the center of any workplace violence prevention program. Your people provide information that policies, cameras, and access-control systems cannot.

Turn Your Plan Into Action

Knowing how to prevent workplace violence requires more than identifying warning signs or publishing a policy. Review your procedures before an incident tests them. Make sure employees know how to raise concerns, managers know where to escalate them, and your response teams can communicate quickly when people need direction.

The stronger those connections are before an emergency, the better positioned your organization will be to protect your people when every minute matters.