Mind-Blowing Stats About Women and Workplace Violence

Nationally in 2021-2022, women accounted for 72.5% of all workplace violence incidents that led to missed work days.

That’s nearly 3xs the rate of men who missed work from a workplace violence incident.

And that discrepancy isn’t just about missed days of work.

Here in California, women experience nonfatal workplace violence, with or without missed work days, at more than double the rate of men. (5.1 per 10,000) compared to men (2.3 per 10,000).

In this piece we’ll look at reasons for this discrepancy, why employers are thinking about workplace violence prevention the wrong way, and what you can do to reduce the safety risk for the women in your workplace.

90% of employers in California have 20 or fewer employees, most of whom interact with the public, which means that most employers must comply with California’s groundbreaking workplace violence prevention law.

Complying with the law not only reduces your risk of regulatory action, and liability risk from 3rd parties, but it WILL keep your employees safer, protect your reputation in the community, and keep your costs down.

Over the last 30 years, I’ve investigated violent incidents from multiple angles:

• Bringing cases against organizations where violence occurred
• Defending individuals in criminal cases
• Conducting internal workplace investigations after threats and assaults

I understand how violence actually develops, how it can be prevented, what plaintiff attorneys and regulators look for, and what organizations are expected to do before and after an incident.

Unsure it your workplace violence prevention plan complies with California’s requirements? Schedule your Free 15-Minute Workplace Violence Compliance & Safety Audit.

In this free 15‑minute call, we’ll look at how you’re currently handling:

• Your written workplace violence prevention plan.
• Staff training on threats, aggression, and violent behavior.
• How you respond to and document incidents.
• Where you may be exposed under California’s workplace violence prevention law.

You’ll leave with a clear sense of your biggest gaps and 1–2 practical steps you can take right away to improve compliance, safety, and liability protection.

Women make up a large percentage of the workforce in medical, education, social work, retail, hospitality, and the restaurant business. All fields where workplace violence incidents happen with some frequency.

Women make up the majority of employees working in offices, and at the front desk, including reception, and service attendants. So they’re frequently in direct contact with the public.

Women are also at greater risk from domestic violence. And thus more likely than men to be attacked at work by a personal acquaintance.

Despite this imbalance, many employers take a one-size fits all approach to workplace violence prevention treating all employees as having the same risk regardless of gender, or the type of work performed.

They throw together a violence prevention plan that’s generic. And even when employers address the 4 source types of workplace violence, they do so broadly, as if women and men have equal risk. When they don’t.

Here’s what you can do to help your female employees reduce the risk of being targeted by workplace violence:

• Conduct interview based safety hazard assessments tailored to your actual employees, the type of work they do, and how they interact with the public. Questionnaires barely skim the surface compared to interviews, and the more in-depth your information the better.
• Look at the actual ways that your employees work with the public and with each other. Use that information to implement work practices that reduce safety hazards, such as meeting one-on-one with clients, patients, and customers either at the workplace, their workplace, or their home.
• Incorporate strategies to avoid physical harm that are tailored to work for your employees work situations. What matters is that they learn and implement strategies that will work for them, rather than broad brush strategies that work in theory but not practice.
• Create processes that improve communication between your employees, and management, so that if your front desk employee needs help, she knows exactly who to contact, and exactly how to reach that person. And the same goes for communicating concerns about someone your employees know from outside of work, so that you can create processes to help those employees arrive and leave work safely without being confronted by that person in the parking lot.
• Ensure that you have an effective complaint and investigation process that proactively addresses any workplace issues as soon as they arise, including those that can lead to violence. It’s not enough to have a policy prohibiting conduct. You’ve got to have a way to enforce thot policy quickly, fairly, and effectively.

If you’re a small California organization with employees who interact with the public, you’re required to establish, implement, and maintain an effective workplace violence prevention, and you want to make sure that you’re complying with California’s workplace violence prevention requirements, protecting your employees, and reducing your risk. Schedule your Free 15-Minute Workplace Violence Compliance & Safety Audit.