EAPs Can Do More to Protect Workers and Employers Against OSHA Fines Related to Workplace Violence

When you promote your EAP (...and hopefully you are using a monthly newsletter like Frontline Employee EAP Newsletter to do it) be sure to encourage employees who are victims of workplace violence to come to the EAP for support and appropriate assessment. Remind them you are available, and here is why: You can help them deal with the traumatic stress of such incidents. And you can play an intervention role in reducing the likelihood that an employee will quit, take mental health days, or suffer the effects of acute stress in the days or weeks ahead. These reasons are obvious to good core technologists.. but of course the practical reason is to also increase your EAP utilization so you stick around. If you think a managed care 800# will do this sort of thing after you're dumped for low utilization, guess again. So increasing EAP utilization and finding awesome ways to do it that benefit everyone is always a good idea.

Now, let's give you another reason. That is helping the employer not be fined by OSHA for failure to take due care in helping to prevent workplace violence.

Oh yes, when employees get bitten, punched, stabbed, or killed...these incidents must be reported to OSHA. OSHA, then decides to fine the hell out of the employer (or not) based upon whether it discovers a lack of controls, meaning proper safeguards, training, and prevention mechanisms to prevent workplace violence. It's no different than Asbestos.

The EAP can be a canary in a coal mine for the employer and learn about risks directly from injured employees and others, and whether a larger problem of risk to the employer exists that OSHA might possibly discover. In other words, the EAP can help prevent future workplace violence incidents and do the right thing to save the employer's bacon.

Now, EAPs can't tell management how high to jump. But they can create what you have heard me describe in the past as a "Annual Risk Mapping Report". This concept entails a series of recommendations to the employer that gently, and with their invitation please--never send unsolicited--explain what the EAP has discovered in the way of important, addressable risk issues that may prevent loss in the future. No confidential information is divulged, of course. These environmental observations gathered in the course of EAP work.

These risks could be, say, perceived tension between race demographics (black and white employees), untrained supervisors ignorant of employment practices liability and improper behavior, that with education, could reduce risk of an EPL lawsuit to the organization. And, of course, communication about exposures to violence from lack of training and protective measures. Any organization should welcome such a report from the EAP, and when in writing, it becomes important stuff. The report should be written collaboratively so is not an indictment of issues management has ignored. You finesse this sort of thing, but it powerful stuff to advance your program's mission and effectiveness.

For example, here is a press release from OSHA: It describes a company fined by OSHA for employees being harmed because of Workplace Violence, one that did  not have proper safeguards in place.

An active and engaged EAP could have increased the likelihood of a program of intervention being established long before this intervention by OSHA. And the EAP could have saved employees from further injury or harm years (perhaps even death, although that is not an issue in this report) before this employer was fined.

This is how EAPs prove financial cost-benefit and worth. You do not need a research firm in Switzerland being paid $100,000 to do EAP research on cost benefit to quickly the return on an EAP investment with scenarios like this one.

Marijuana is a Gateway Drug, No Matter What Gate

Well this is hilarious research: http://www.healthfinder.gov/News/Article.aspx?id=701168&source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery - Researcher showed that marijuana (well this research anyway) isn't a gateway drug despite the fact that researchers admit that most people use other drugs used marijuana first. That's a fact they admit it. But you got it all wrong if you are thinking 'gateway." Huh? Yes, it's true. The chemicals in marijuana do not cause teens to go on and use other drugs in the future. (Like whoever said they did!?) The researchers instead are saying that teens use marijuana for different reasons, (and peer pressure is not one.) These reasons are boredom or seeking insight and truth and inner understanding. Those who are bored may then go on to use Cocaine! Those who seek insight and self-understanding will go on to use magic mushrooms! (They failed to say what happens if a teen is both bored and seeking insight.) So, shame on you for thinking marijuana is a gateway drug. You are just plain wrong. It's the reasons that kids use marijuana are the real gateway. So, the next time you learn of a teenager smoking pot, don't worry about it. Just find out if they are bored or looking for insight. Then worry. Otherwise back off because there is no gateway thing going on. (This is my tongue in cheek reaction to this study that SOUGHT to show us all that marijuana is not a gateway drug.) Of course it is!

Workplace Violence Prevention: It's More Teaching Signs, Symptoms, and Head for the Exit!

Conducting a violence in the workplace training program in your company is more than offering a presentation on the signs and symptoms of an employee who might go postal.

Workplace violence may have many antecedents, and signs and symptoms, although important, are really too little, too late to stand alone as a prevention strategy. While training employees hide in place or escape through the nearest exit is certainly worthwhile, and could save a life, there is a lot more to preventing workplace violence prevention if you really want to reduce risk of death in your workplace.

To put on an effective and comprehensive workplace violence prevention program, consider the following topics, and if you would like to see videos for each of these topic as part of the larger more meaningful strategy, visit this free preview library at WorkExcel.com.

- Violence in the Workplace Prevention General Discussion
- Mastering the Respectful Workplace
- Avoiding Workplace Harassment
- Facing Bullying at Work--What to Do.
- Improving Day to Day Workplace Communication
- Employee Conflict Resolution: Simple Steps and Strategies
- Improving Your Assertiveness Skills
- Supervisor Assertiveness Training
- Effective Performance Evaluation of Employees that Improve Relationship with Supervisors
- How to Respond to a Disappointing Performance Review
- Valuing Diversity at Work
- Anger Management: Tips for Employees
- EAP Orientation: The EAP Can Help (for employees under stress and frustrated)
- Manager's Role in Promoting a Respectful Workplace
- Supervisor's Role in Helping to Prevent Workplace Violence
- Supervisor Training: Using the EAP in Supervision to Manage Difficult Employees

Can you see how these topics all contribute to reducing risk of workplace violence? To see any of them as videos, go to WorkExcel.com's all videos preview page.

Salvia: Tell Employees and Parents About It

Salvia (Salvia divinorum) is a plant native to the region of Oaxaca, Mexico. You should start mentioning this drug and discussing it abuse and prevalence among young employees. It is sold on the Internet as a powerful hallucinogenic drug, but it is illegal in only 21 states. At the federal level, Salvia is completely legal and unregulated, but it is beyond a doubt a substance that should be discussed and warned about. Salvia is usually smoked and creates an “out of body experience,” making it dangerous and unpredictable, and rendering the user utterly out of control of their behavior and decisions. The user may have complete amnesia from the "trip." Salvia is sold in strengths and dosages that may be 10X, 30X, or 200X in potency. Salvia is used mostly by young people ages 12 to 25. If you are a concerned parent, supervise your children, know who their friends are, and monitor their whereabouts. Talk to older teens about the dangers of Salvia and abuse of any drug, including alcohol. Signs of Salvia use may include drug paraphernalia, Internet purchases, or small butane torches used for burning the substance in a pipe. A YouTube search will show the vivid dangers of this drug in videos that have been posted online by users, people who have had bad experiences with it, and those it thought. To preview out drug and alcohol education programs, visit multiple programs preview page.

Powdered Alcohol: Will It Be Another Concern for Parents?

Parents and employers, heads up. There is a new, potentially dangerous substance of abuse coming onto the market: prepared, flavored, crystalline ethanol in ready-to-drink packets. Add five ounces of water and, abracadabra, just like Cup-o-Soup™, a flavored cocktail equal to the alcohol content of a typical mixed drink results. It’s not magic, it’s powdered alcohol. On March 10, 2015, the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau granted Palcohol, a powdered-alcohol manufacturer—the only one in America to date—approval to sell its novel product on the U.S. market. The substance may be available as early as August 2015. Learn about this substance (at least from the manufacturers perspective at www.palcohol.com. Download a tip sheet for this topic at http://bit.ly/TIP148

Best Model for Performance-based Intervention

Here is an effective workplace intervention model to help alcoholic or drug abusing workers and it succeeds almost every time it is tried, but follow up by a knowledgeable EAP pro is key. Use a provider who understands job security leverage dynamics and the core technology of employee assistance programming. Essentially, the model for performance-based intervention places the employee in the position of making a decision to accept an EAP referral or a legitimate disciplinary action for documented ongoing job performance problems. The supervisor does not accept any postponement of this decision. (This is a major Achilles heal for those who attempt this model of intervention.) The disciplinary action is held in abeyance, but the requirement is to go to the EAP now in order for this accommodation to be made. A common myth among supervisors is that this method of constructive confrontation punishes the employee for refusing to go to the EAP. Indeed, it does not. Never take disciplinary action “for failure to go to the EAP.” Instead, take disciplinary action for ongoing job performance problems. This should always be clearly stated to the employee so there is no misinterpretation. If you can communicate this much, you are home free. Drug and Alcohol DOT Supervisor Training Instructors Guide discusses this model in detail - http://workexcel.net/dot-supervisor-preview.html

Understanding Mandatory Referrals