What the Numbers Say About Workplace Violence
Workplace violence prevention isn’t a theoretical concern for most Massachusetts businesses — it’s a measurable, ongoing risk with real numbers behind it. According to OSHA, of the 5,283 fatal workplace injuries recorded in the United States in 2023, 740 were the result of violent acts. Homicides alone accounted for roughly 62% of those violent fatalities, and violent acts overall made up 8.7% of all work-related deaths that year. Those are national figures, but the risk factors OSHA identifies — handling cash, working alone, working late hours, serving the public directly — describe a huge share of Massachusetts’s retail, healthcare, and service-sector employers.
This isn’t a report meant to alarm anyone into overreacting. It’s meant to give business owners and facility managers a clear, evidence-based starting point for a workplace violence prevention plan, rather than reacting only after an incident. Most companies address workplace security reactively — after a threatening incident, a termination that goes badly, or a customer confrontation that escalates further than anyone expected. The data suggests a better approach is proactive: building the policy, the training, and the physical safeguards before they’re tested, not after.
Who Faces the Highest Risk
OSHA’s guidance names several groups with elevated exposure to workplace violence:
- Healthcare workers and social service staff, who often deal directly with distressed or unstable individuals
- Taxi, rideshare, and delivery drivers, who work alone and often handle cash or valuable goods
- Retail employees, particularly at establishments open late at night
- Customer service and public-facing staff, who absorb frustration from the public with no ability to control who walks in the door
- Law enforcement and public safety personnel
Risk climbs further when several of these factors stack: a late-night retail employee working alone who also handles cash is in a materially different risk category than a daytime office worker, and a workplace violence prevention plan should reflect that rather than treating every role the same.
What a Real Workplace Violence Prevention Program Includes
OSHA’s own framework for workplace violence prevention rests on five elements, and in practice, most Massachusetts employers are missing at least one of them:
1. A Written Zero-Tolerance Policy
This needs to explicitly cover violence from any source — coworkers, customers, clients, or outside parties — and apply to every employee, not just frontline staff. A policy that exists only in an employee handbook nobody reads isn’t a program; it needs to be trained on, referenced, and enforced consistently.
2. A Hazard Assessment Specific to the Worksite
A workplace violence prevention plan for a downtown office tower looks nothing like one for a 24-hour pharmacy or a construction site. A security risk assessment conducted by an outside firm typically surfaces blind spots that internal staff have stopped noticing — a poorly lit loading dock, a front desk with no clear sightline to the parking lot, an after-hours entrance with no camera coverage.
3. Training That Covers Recognition and Response
Staff need to know what escalating behavior looks like before it becomes a crisis, and they need a clear, rehearsed response — who to call, where to go, how to communicate with coworkers without escalating the situation themselves. This is the piece most workplace violence prevention programs skip, usually because it takes ongoing investment rather than a one-time policy document.
4. Physical and Administrative Controls
Access control on non-public entrances, cameras at building perimeters, panic buttons at reception desks, and a visible security presence during high-risk hours all reduce the odds that a situation escalates in the first place. For many businesses, a corporate security services arrangement — whether that’s a stationed guard, patrol checks, or both — is the most direct way to add a physical deterrent without redesigning the building.
5. An Investigation and Follow-Up Process
Every incident, threat, or near-miss needs to be logged and reviewed, not just the ones that result in visible harm. Patterns matter: an employee who has made three vague threats over six months is a materially different case than someone flagged once, and a program that doesn’t track incidents over time will miss that pattern entirely.
Threat Assessment: The Step Most Companies Skip
When a specific employee, client, or outside individual has already raised concern — erratic behavior, a direct or implied threat, a troubling pattern of communication — a formal threat assessment is a different exercise from general workplace violence prevention planning. It’s a focused evaluation of one specific person or situation, conducted by someone trained to separate genuine risk indicators from behavior that’s merely unusual or upsetting. Massachusetts employers are often reluctant to take this step, worried about overreacting or creating legal exposure, but an outside, professionally documented threat assessment is generally the safer path on both counts — it creates a defensible record that the concern was taken seriously and evaluated appropriately, rather than ignored or handled informally.
Warning Signs Employees Are Rarely Trained to Notice
Most incidents don’t happen without any warning at all — they’re preceded by behavior that, in hindsight, colleagues describe as “off,” but that nobody flagged at the time because they weren’t sure it mattered or didn’t know who to tell. Some of the more commonly cited warning signs include:
- A sudden, marked change in behavior, mood, or work performance
- Direct or veiled threats, even ones framed as jokes
- Fixation on a grievance, a person, or a perceived injustice that doesn’t fade with time
- Escalating conflict with a specific coworker, customer, or manager
- References to weapons, or a known history of violence that resurfaces in conversation
None of these, on their own, predicts an incident with certainty — most people who show one or two of these signs never become violent. That’s exactly why a formal reporting channel matters: it lets a pattern accumulate and be evaluated by someone trained to assess it, rather than leaving the judgment call to whichever coworker happens to notice something first.
Legal and Liability Considerations for Massachusetts Employers
Massachusetts employers can face negligence claims if an employee is harmed by violence the employer reasonably should have anticipated and failed to act on — for instance, a known history of threats from a specific individual that went unaddressed. A documented prevention program doesn’t eliminate that exposure, but it materially changes the employer’s position: a business that can show a written policy, completed staff training, a functioning incident-reporting process, and evidence that reported concerns were actually investigated is in a very different legal position than one that has none of that on file. Insurance carriers increasingly ask about these same elements during underwriting, and some offer better terms to employers who can document an active program rather than an informal, undocumented approach.
Where Prevention Fits Into a Broader Security Plan
For most businesses, workplace violence prevention isn’t a standalone service — it’s one piece of a security consulting engagement that also covers access control, visitor policy, and emergency response planning. Trying to solve workplace violence prevention in isolation, without looking at the building’s overall security posture, tends to produce a policy document that looks good on paper but doesn’t hold up when something actually happens.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Hub Security and Investigative Group works with employers across Boston, Cambridge, Waltham, and Woburn on workplace violence prevention programs that start with a real assessment of the specific workplace — not a generic template. That typically means a walk-through of the facility, a review of current policies and incident history, and specific, prioritized recommendations, whether that turns out to be guard coverage during particular hours, an access control upgrade, staff training, or a combination of all three.
Common Questions About Workplace Violence Prevention
Does my business really need a formal workplace violence prevention plan?
If your business has employees who work alone, handle cash, work late hours, or interact directly with the public, the OSHA data above describes your risk profile whether or not you’ve formalized a plan yet. A written, trained-on plan is also what protects a business legally if an incident does occur and questions get asked about what precautions were in place.
What’s the difference between workplace violence prevention and a threat assessment?
Workplace violence prevention is the ongoing program — policy, training, physical controls, incident tracking. A threat assessment is a focused evaluation triggered by a specific concern about a specific person. A mature program includes both: the general prevention framework, plus a clear process for escalating to a formal threat assessment when something specific comes up.
How much does a workplace violence prevention assessment cost?
It depends on the size and complexity of the facility, but most engagements start with a scoped walk-through and policy review before any ongoing service is recommended, so there’s no commitment to a large program before you know what your specific building and workforce actually need.
Who should be responsible for workplace violence prevention inside a company?
In practice, it works best as a shared responsibility rather than sitting with a single department. HR typically owns the policy and reporting process, facilities or operations manages physical security controls, and management is responsible for consistent enforcement and follow-through on reported concerns. Assigning it entirely to one department — especially one without security expertise — is a common reason prevention programs stall after the initial policy is written.
By Derek Kreymer, Operations Manager