Workplace Violence Policy
Select an organization with which you are familiar.
Research the company’s policy for addressing workplace violence.
Write a 700- to 1,050-word summary in which you:
Identify positive points about the policy.
Discuss how the following were addressed in the policy
Indicators and types of workplace violence
Active shooters
Safety and security
Identify points that you feel need improvement.
Explain if you feel the policy is effective or not and why.
Summarize the employer and employees’ responsibilities for preventing workplace violence and discuss how the policy can be used in the prevention efforts.
Provide examples to support your stance.
Format your manual consistent with APA guidelines. Follow the Instructor Writing Guide.
Workplace Violence Policy
Work violence policy needs to be incorporated in all organizations’ operations to ensure that employees work in a safe environment free from violence, thus improving employee confidence and productivity. Workplace violence entails any threat or act of physical violence, intimidation, harassment and other threatening disruptive behavior that can occur while at the worksite (Fortado,2018 ). The workplace violence range from threats, verbal abuse, homicide and physical assaults that negatively affect employees, clients, customers, and visitors. Thus, effective policies need to be adopted to discourage and counter such acts of violence. Additionally, different workplace violence types include and cover criminal intent, customer client violence, personal relationship violence, customer or client violence, a worker on worker violence, and ideological violence. Effective workplace violence needs to cover and address different types of violence. McDonald’s has an elaborate workplace violence policy that addresses and manages different forms of violence to any party to the organization, thus ensuring that the work environment is safe and conducive in the interest of the common good.
McDonald’s positive points on the workplace violence policy
McDonald’s workplace violence policy has different positive aspects that ensure that it remains safe and secure to all the parties involved (Hanratty et al., 2012). In this case, the workplace violence policy is anchored in universal human rights as spelled out under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This fact ensures that every party’s rights to the organization are upheld, thus ensuring violence is prevented and handled appropriately in the interest of the common good. The fact that McDonald’s is a multinational corporation, the human rights aspects serve the greater good to ensure that uniform human rights standards are practices across the different subsidiaries.
Mcdonald’s workplace violence takes employees’ training to understand their rights, rights to others, and duty to observe the highest levels of respect, thus ensuring that workplace violence is effectively prevented (Hanratty et al., 2012). The training is done while employees are being oriented, and there is continuous training to ensure employees’ knowledge and skills in maintaining a peaceful working environment are maintained. Additionally, the training is on workplace violence policy is done in fifteen languages to employees in subsidiaries across the globe. Online training sessions are implemented to ensure that employees serve the basis of peaceful and conducive employment.
Workers at McDonald’s are sensitized on identifying, preventing and handling discrimination, harassment and retaliation that cause violence at the workplace to ensure a peaceful environment are maintained (Hanratty et al., 2012). McDonald’s has partnered with key stakeholders and institutions such as non-governmental organizations and third-party experts to guide the business on effective ways to manage and prevent violence by addressing the source of violence, such as discrimination.
Address to different aspects under the policy
Indicators and types of workplace violence
McDonald’s addresses the indicators and different types of workplace violence through inclusive contractual practices. The organization is committed to attaining equal opportunity, diversity and an inclusive workplace culture that will combat the indicators and types of workplace violence (Hanratty et al., 2012). The inclusive contractual arrangements ensure that work operations and processes are streamlined to eliminate conflicts that amount to workplace violence. Conflicts that are likely to arise are addressed by ensuring that all parties are satisfied with defined roles and responsibilities, thus ensuring that work operations are run devoid of conflicts and violence.
Active shooters
The rising cases of active shooters in public places are an issue of concern. It causes violence and disruption in the organization, thus inclining McDonald’s to adopt an elaborate and effective active shooter preparedness/emergency preparedness under its policy. Under the policy, McDonald’s ensures that the employees are sufficiently informed on what to do when an active shooter incident is experienced. In this case, the organization has taken steps to sign up for active shooter training, report suspicious incidences to authorities, sign for local emergency alerts, and align the organization to the environment and possible dangers associated with it. Additionally, Macdonald has made effective plants to prevent and handle active shooter incidences. In this regard, they have active security and screening tools to detect weapons, developing clear exists and paths in shooting incidences.
Safety and Security
McDonald’s has adopted safety and security measures to ensure that workplace violence is prevented in the best way possible. In this regard, all the McDonalds branches across the globe have trained security personnel tasked with preventing and handling insecurity issues, amounting to workplace violence. The security personnel has tools such as screening gadgets to detect weapons from customers, employees and any other party to the business establishment.
Consequently, McDonald’s has established direct contact with law enforcement agencies to ensure suspicious activities and violence incidences are reported in time to prevent them or reduce the losses and damages that could be experienced. Additionally, the employees are trained in handling workplace violence, thus ensuring they have sufficient knowledge and skill to manage insecurity issues through approaches such as calling the authorities.
Points that need improvement
There are workplace violence aspects that are not addressed in the policy, and thus the business needs to adopt the necessary issues to address such issues. In this regard, there is a need to address threats and intimidation among the employees while protecting their identity (Callender and Bryant, 2004). Workplace violence needs to be reported and addressed, and thus the organization needs to have an effective structure to ensure that violence is reported and acted upon while protecting their identity. For instance, the organization needs to have drop boxes or suggestion boxes where employees, customers, visitors, and other parties can report violence incidences. The reporting structure ensures that all workplace violence complaints are reported and addressed, thus continually making the organization to have a safe and conducive working environment.
Effectiveness of the policy
McDonald’s workplace violence policy is effective in that it has adopted an international standard that is anchored on the human rights to ensure that human rights are observed and respected between different parties, thus preventing conflicts and violence between different parties. Therefore, founding the workplace violence policy on universal human rights ensures that it remains effective in combating violence.
Employer and employee responsibility in preventing workplace violence
McDonald’s and its employees have different responsibilities to ensure that the workplace violence policy remains active and effective. The employer needs to ensure that training programs are run continuously to the employees to ensure adequate knowledge and skills in handling workplace violence (Callender and Bryant, 2004). Additionally, the employer needs to ensure that reported workplace violence issues reported are addressed conclusively in the common good’s interest. On the other hand, the employees have the responsibility to adhere to the workplace violence policy as a set and trained by their organization to ensure that conflicts are eliminated, thus attaining high-efficiency levels devoid of violence.
Conclusion
McDonald’s has workplace violence policy is designed to address all types and forms of workplace violence to ensure the organization’s working environment is safe and secure for all the parties involved. The policy is founded on universal human rights, thus ensuring that it can be practiced worldwide for all the subsidiaries. The policy is consistently improved to ensure its flexibility and adaptability to meet the current and future safety and security needs.
References
Callender Knefel, A. M., & Bryant, C. D. (2004). Workplace as combat zone: reconceptualizing occupational and organizational violence. Deviant Behavior, 25(6), 579-601.
Fortado, S. (2018). Workplace sexual abuse, labor and the# MeToo movement. Labor Studies Journal, 43(4), 241-244.
Hanratty, B., Milton, B., Ashton, M., & Whitehead, M. (2012). ‘McDonalds and KFC, it’s never going to happen’: the challenges of working with food outlets to tackle the obesogenic environment. Journal of Public Health, 34(4), 548-554.
