What Is Workplace Violence Training and Why It’s Essential

Confirming this are some shocking statistics from the National Safety Council:

• Workplace homicides remain a persistent problem in the US: 470 workers were killed by violent acts on the job in 2024 alone, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent data. Healthcare workers carry a disproportionate share of the broader risk: they’re roughly five times more likely to experience workplace violence than workers in other fields, and account for nearly half of all reported workplace assaults despite making up only about 10% of the US workforce. Globally, Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report found 22% of employees reported experiencing anger “a lot of the previous day,” the highest rate the survey has recorded, an emotional-climate indicator worth watching alongside violence statistics, though it measures workplace anger broadly rather than violence specifically.

Violence can have adverse physical and psychological effects on employees, including loss of productivity and high turnover. No company would want to go through all this.

Is prevention of such issues possible? Yes.

Do companies understand what preventive measures entail?

Well, some do and some don’t.

To prevent workplace violence, you first need to understand what it is and the effective strategies to protect your employees from it. Only then can you avoid injuries to your employees, insurance payouts, absenteeism, and maintain a good business reputation while creating a healthier workplace.

This blog post discusses this and more. Let’s dive in.

Watch: What Is Workplace Violence Training for Employees?

Workplace violence training is an educational program to train both employers and employees on how to prevent or deal with acts of violence in the workplace.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as “any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the worksite.”

It includes both verbal and physical acts that cause injury of any kind to a person.

Such training programs are intended to inform a workforce about the negative effects of workplace violence and ways to eliminate it. Companies use online, onsite, or both training methods simultaneously to deliver workplace violence prevention training.

What Are the Types of Workplace Violence?

Workforce violence is divided into four major types, as classified by NIOSH and used by OSHA. They are:

1. Criminal Intent

In this type of violence, the perpetrator has no legitimate connection to the workplace, and the primary motive is usually theft. Robbery, trespassing, and shoplifting-related assaults fall under this category. Employees who work alone or during late hours are particularly at risk.

2. Customer/Client

This type involves a customer, client, patient, or student who becomes violent while receiving services. It’s the most common driver of nonfatal violence overall, and healthcare workers face by far the highest exposure to it.

3. Worker-on-Worker

Perpetrated by a current or former employee against another employee, this often stems from work-related disputes or interpersonal conflict. Employees at all levels, including managers, are vulnerable. Bullying and threats that escalate over time fall here too, not just single incidents.

4. Personal Relationship

This occurs when someone’s personal relationship follows them into the workplace and causes disruption or harm, most often intimate partner violence. Importantly, this isn’t limited to an outside partner attacking an employee: it can also involve two coworkers who are or were in a personal relationship with each other, which changes how HR needs to handle it internally. Women are disproportionately affected by this type.

Some other frameworks outside the federal system add a fifth category for ideologically or politically motivated violence, but this isn’t part of the NIOSH or OSHA classification, so we’re keeping this guide aligned with the standard both agencies actually use.

Workplace Violence Risk Factors

Before we get to the question of how to prevent violence in the workplace, let’s check out the risk factors.

Anyone can become a victim of workplace violence. Having said that, people in certain occupations and of specific genders are at higher risk than others.

Among employees, those who work as healthcare professionals, delivery agents, customer service agents, law enforcement officers, and public service workers, and those who work alone or in small groups, carry higher risks. This is mainly because these are the jobs wherein they often come into contact with people in general.

Likewise, compared to men, women are more vulnerable to workplace violence. For decades, gender inequality and stereotypes have put women at a greater risk than their male counterparts in their professional lives.

Knowing all of this is important, but you also need to understand the significance of not having a proper program in place to prevent violence. The next section makes it crystal clear.

Why is Workplace Violence a Big Concern?

“Workplace violence is a recognized hazard that can cause serious physical harm or death to employees, and it’s an employer’s duty to provide employees with a work environment that is free from known and recognized hazards.” 

                        Martha Yoder, Director of MIOSHA (The Michigan                                                                                               Occupational Safety and Health Administration).

Federal regulation here is still catching up. OSHA has been developing a specific standard for workplace violence in healthcare and social assistance settings since 2016, but as of its most recent regulatory agenda, that rulemaking was moved to “long-term action” status, meaning no federal standard is expected soon. States aren’t waiting: California’s SB 553 created an enforceable workplace violence prevention standard effective July 1, 2024, requiring a written prevention plan, employee training, and an incident log, one of the more comprehensive state requirements in the country and worth watching as a model other states may follow.

Violence in the workplace entails a lot of liabilities. Besides causing injuries or death to employees, it may incur damage to workplace property. Add to that the medical expenses, workers’ compensation, and bad reputation owing to a failure to maintain workplace safety.

What is equally worrying is that, according to OSHA, 25 percent of workplace violence goes unreported.

The only way to deal with this problem is employee training. By spreading awareness organization-wide, you can prevent workplace violence before it rears its ugly head.

(Source: safeworkaustralia.gov.au)

Workplace Violence Prevention Strategies

Wondering how to handle workplace violence? There are several measures you can take to deal with workplace violence. Let’s see some of the top ones.

⇨ Build a Culture of Civility First

Everything below this point is, to some degree, reactive: screening, policy, security, response. Before any of that, the more durable investment is proactive: building a culture where respect and trust are the default, so aggression and harassment are less likely to take root in the first place. This means training that promotes positive social norms explicitly, not just prohibitions, well-being and community-building initiatives that give employees a genuine stake in the workplace, and leadership that visibly models the behavior it expects. Organizations that invest here tend to see the payoff show up as better engagement and lower turnover, not just fewer incidents, because a lot of what looks like “violence prevention” from a compliance angle is really just a healthy workplace culture viewed from a different lens. Prevention works best as a genuinely multifaceted effort: physical security and reporting systems catch what a good culture doesn’t prevent, but culture is what reduces how much needs catching.

⇨ Employee Vetting

A thorough background check of employees at the time of hiring is a good start to workplace violence prevention. You can verify their educational qualifications, review their social media activity, and examine their past employment. All this will reveal whether a new hire has a violent or criminal past.

Personality or psychological pre-employment assessments marketed as predicting violence risk carry real legal exposure and should be approached carefully. Under the ADA, any assessment that functions as a medical or psychological examination can only be administered after a conditional job offer, not during initial screening, and assessments with a discriminatory adverse impact on a protected group can trigger Title VII liability even without intent to discriminate. If you’re considering one, get it validated by an industrial-organizational psychologist and reviewed by employment counsel before use, “predicts violence” is a strong claim that most commercial tools can’t actually back up with evidence, and using one that can’t creates liability without the safety benefit it promises.

⇨ Company Policies

Having a workplace violence prevention policy in place is one of the essential ways to build a violence-free culture. Violence often starts with bullying, intimidation, and harassment. Such policies should spell out the following in clear and categorical terms:

• What constitutes workplace violence
• Why is it hazardous
• Procedure for lodging complaints
• Penalties for perpetrating or supporting violence

⇨ Open Lines of Communication

When you keep the lines of communication open, employees will feel more confident about approaching the HR department or management whenever they encounter a problem. This will encourage them to report impending workplace violence right away instead of looking the other way. You should build trust by being supportive of your employees through open communication.

⇨ Awareness Training

There is no substitute for a formal workplace violence prevention training program. You can deploy interactive online training sessions that employees can take anytime and anywhere. The aim of such programs should be to raise awareness about the issue and teach employees to be tolerant of individual differences.

⇨ Security Measures

Implementing strict security measures in and around a workplace is yet another step you can take to contain workplace violence. For example, security checks and visitor identity verification can help you prevent violence involving outsiders. Providing security for employees working in isolated spaces, as well as installing surveillance cameras to monitor people entering and exiting your organization, can also help.

⇨ Warning Signs

Sometimes employees may have pent-up feelings induced by stress and burnout. This can be due to professional or personal issues. If left unaddressed, such emotions can give birth to frustration and anger, which can take little time to escalate to violence. Recognize early warning signs of employees’ grievances and resolve them as soon as possible.

Watch: What Is Sexual Harassment Training?

How to Create an Effective Workplace Violence Prevention Training Program

It’s not enough to have a workplace violence prevention plan on paper. You need to implement it through practical training. Keep the following elements in mind while planning and executing a training program.

• Analyze Your Workplace

Start by asking some pertinent questions. Is there any history of violence in your company? If yes, what was the nature of the violence? How was it handled? What measures did you take to prevent it from recurring?

Even if you have no past incidents of violence, your employees need to be aware of them to prevent any outbreak in the future.

These high-profile incidents of workplace violence can be educational during your training sessions.

• Identify the Triggers

Generally, workplace violence is the handiwork of three factors: 

1. A workplace environment favorable for violence to ignite
2. An event that sets off the violent incident
3. The person or persons responsible for it

You should identify these factors and address them immediately before they become a deadly cocktail.

• Implement a Non-Violent Workplace Policy

It always helps to implement a company-wide policy on non-violence. Begin by assessing the risk factors. The vulnerability may depend on the nature of your work and the worksite where you work. Make sure your employees follow the policy in letter and spirit. Set up a system for reward and disciplinary action to ensure compliance.

• Choose a Course

A workplace violence course is an essential element in training. You’ll find several courses online, both free and subscription-based. All of these courses are designed by experts to address the growing menace of workplace violence. Make your choice based on what you want from a course and how comprehensive the syllabus is.

Watch: Handling Workplace Violence Course

• Choose a Learning Management System

  

You’d certainly need a tool to administer the workplace violence course. The best one for the purpose is a learning management system. Using it, you can create, share, and track all kinds of online courses, tests, and lessons with your learners. Make sure you buy one that is easy to use, customizable, and flexible.

• Train Your Workforce

Use interactive and practical methods to train your employees online. You can include engaging videos, case studies, role-plays, and group discussions in your training program. When you consider ease of access and flexibility, online training is the best choice. This method is also scalable with no limit on class size. You can supplement online training with on-site, face-to-face training, too.

Now that you understand the requirements of such training programs, let’s have a look at one.

Best Course for Workplace Violence Prevention Training

Workplace Violence Prevention Training Course by ProProfs is a concise, learner-centric, and engaging course. It is one of the best OSHA workplace violence training courses. Each course chapter includes a quiz and a survey to assist you in a knowledge check and provide feedback.

The course covers all the essential topics, including types of workplace violence, warning signs, laws related to workplace violence, safety analysis, emergency plan, and more.

The course is priced at Forever free plan (up to 10 learners). Paid plan starts at $1.99/learner/month (billed annually) for large teams. No hidden charges. 15-day money-back guarantee.

ProProfs makes it super-easy to deploy a workplace violence training program.

You can pick a ready-to-use course from its library of 100+ premium online courses or start everything from scratch.

You can easily customize the courses according to your audience’s specific requirements. You can also add your logo, themes, and messaging as a part of the branding exercises.

A built-in virtual classroom enables instructors to centrally manage training from a single location. You can use the classroom to add learners, create groups & sub-groups, assign courses, view and share reports, and so on. It also offers numerous settings and configurations.

To ensure a higher course completion rate, you can set reminders, assign microlearning-based learning paths, make the training mobile-friendly, and provide support in the form of a self-service knowledge base.

If you want to explore more related courses, we recommend the following from the ProProfs library.

1. Workplace Anti-Bullying & Harassment Training

Eliminate all traces of bullying and harassment from your workplace with this course. Build a healthy environment by preventing and handling inappropriate conduct effectively.

2. Workplace Active Shooter Training

Increase your preparedness and response to workplace incidents involving active shooters. Make an emergency plan for the worst-case scenario.

3. Sexual Harassment Prevention in Healthcare

Never let your employees or patients become the next victim of sexual harassment. Learn how to prevent sexual harassment in the healthcare industry. Train your staff with real-life examples.

4. Workplace Conflict Resolution Training

Nip workplace conflicts in the bud by identifying and resolving them. Turn disagreements into positive work relationships through mediations, talks, and compromises.

Need Help With Workplace Violence Training?

Violence in the workplace is a serious issue everywhere. It warrants immediate preventive and corrective action. Otherwise, it can take a dangerous turn.

These best practices for handling workplace violence will help you build a peaceful work environment where everybody feels safe.

ProProfs can help you create, configure, share, and analyze workplace violence training easily. In addition to the expert-designed course, you get a cloud LMS to enroll, train, and certify employees seamlessly.

Along with our workplace violence training course, you’ll find several other compliance training courses. These courses are designed to help you fulfill your business obligation of conducting regular mandatory training programs. Find all the essential courses in one place and take the right step today.