Director's Perspective

MSPB Report Examines Violence in the Federal Workplace
An upcoming MSPB report looks at violence in the Federal workplace and how it can be reduced.

Workplace violence includes any physical assault, threat of assault, harassment, intimidation, or bullying that an employee experiences while at work or on duty. Estimates of the costs of workplace violence in the U.S. each year run into many billions of dollars. Some of these costs, including lost work time and wages, medical costs, workers' compensation payments, and legal and security expenses, are easier to quantify than others - such as reduced worker productivity, low employee morale, and increased employee turnover.

A 2005 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found that state and local government establishments experienced incidences of workplace violence at a greater rate than private industry establishments due to the higher percentage of these government employees who worked directly with the public, worked with unstable or violent persons, worked in high crime areas, or guarded valuable goods or property. As these characteristics also describe many Federal employees, MSPB undertook a study to examine violence specifically in the More ...

Excerpt from the May 2012 Issues of Merit newsletter