Kelleher (1996) list nine elements that directly impact the work environment: excessive workload, inadequate time to complete the assigned task, poor supervision, uncertain organizational climate, insufficient authority to meet job responsibilities, unclear responsibilities or job functions, philosophical differences between the organization and employee, unexpected or significant change at work or at home, and unanswered or unresolved frustrations.
Mental Health
Employees who are angry with their manager or company, who fear an imminent termination, or who are just unhappy in a job may resort to violence. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and many state laws prohibit discrimination against employees based on actual or perceived disability. Mental illness is included within the definition of disability. It is unlawful to fire someone solely because he or she has a mental illness. An employer also must reasonably accommodate employees with disabilities—including those who are mentally ill—to allow them to perform the essential functions of their job. But the law does not excuse misconduct. (Hoey, 2013)
Employees though not to discriminate must notify an employer if they are threatened, intimidated or have fear of being in the workplace. The employer will have a reason to dismiss the violent employee must be based on objective facts, not fear or conjecture.
Psychological Manners
In some of my readings, the psychological mindset has been identified as a driving
Kelly et al. (2015) continued with the statement that staff who are insulted tend to be younger, less experienced or educated, provide more direct care and spend more time with patients, receive lower pay, and possess low levels of qualifications (Kelly et al., 2015). The most common injuries on psychiatric units are kicking, hitting, shoving, and beating (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2015). The most common health complaints reported by staff that were involved in a physical assault are headaches, muscle soreness, and headaches; other complaints that are more serious include dizziness, shortness of breath, and numbness and tingling of the extremities (Kelly et al., 2015). These aggressive behaviors of patients are preceded by many things. Patients may be upset about being admitted to the unit or feel as if their control has been taken away. Literature suggested that poor medication compliance, positive symptoms (such as command hallucinations), and substance misuse makes act of violence (Graham, 2012). Graham (2012) stated that it should not be assumed that there is a direct relationship between a specific disease (or symptoms) and acts of violence. The reason for patient violence is varying and sometimes unknown. It was reported
The employer must conduct an internal investigation by interviewing the parties involved and witnesses. The article also mentions the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination Act of 1967 to explain the root of the guidelines, and gives further analysis using different clarification approaches to clarify the legal concerns involved. In order to describe prevention methods, the article straightforwardly states what a manager prerequisites. Training and informing the employees is the law. The article’s approach and statements mentioned how to deal with legal matters and to make sure that they are valid. Managing harassment and discrimination problems is not only a responsibility, but also makes good business sense. Maintaining a workplace free of discrimination and harassment by doing whatever is necessary to prevent complaints from occurring in the first place, and stopping them before they reach the level of lawsuits are acceptable methods of dealing with legal issues.
In addition to any potential financial stressors an individual may be experiencing that could trigger a violent episode, there may be a mental illness that makes the bad situation worse. Conditions such as, anti-social personality disorder, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder are just a few illnesses that can make a potentially violent situation go from bad to worse. The negative effects of an individual’s illness make can make a person think that whatever problem they are having that is making them angry, is worse than it really is, potentially making their violent outburst worse. The stress this puts on the victim has a high probability of passing on an emotional disorder to them on top of the abuse they are enduring. (Blasco-Ros, Concepcion, Sanchez-Lorente, & Martinez, 2010)
An officer frustrated with law enforcement and how mental illness is currently regarded said, “If we always do what we have done, we’ll always get what we’ve got. In regard to community relation issues, agencies periodically should examine where they are, where they want to be, and how they will get there. This applies to all phases of law enforcement. Dealing with individuals in mental health crisis withstanding no exception”. “Twenty five percent of the people who are shot and killed by police are mentally ill. Mental illness has always taken a risk as a big challenge for those in law enforcement”, as referenced by an FBI article Crisis Intervention Teams: Responding to Mental Illness Crisis Calls. It is a painstaking decision to make when a police officer is going on a call to a victim who’s sorrowfully not taken his or her medication for some time and has become violent. These calls often result in the shooting of the person who suffers from mental illness. Police officials are working on changes to reduce the amount of tragic shootings
But mentally ill individuals are usually unsafe if we make them one. Mental illness does not always lead to violence. In cases where violence occurs, the incident normally results from the same reasons as with a regular person; thus, feeling threatened, excessive use of alcohol and/or drugs, etc. However, some offenses that the mentally ill commits leave the government no option but to incarcerate them. These crimes also draw some people’s attention to the wrong side, making them agree with the government plan to imprison them. One of the cases that I believe contributes to this is Tarasoff v. The Regiments of the University of California’s case. Tarasoff v. The Regiments of the University of California is the case that flickered communities to look more into finding ways to protect the community (imprisoning the ill). This case consists of the premeditated murder of Tatiana Tarasoff by Prosenjit Poddar, who detailed to his therapist that he would commit the murder. Unfortunately, after all the assistance through therapy, Poddar still committed the crime. Situations like these made some people lose hope with psychiatric centers. Instead, they see mentally ill as criminals who are using their illness to their
Violence in any form will not be tolerated and will be dealt with appropriately. Employees at all levels are encouraged to report threatening or intimidating behavior to the appropriate authorities in and outside the department.
Violence in health care is an intriguing subject. Understanding and coping with threatening and violent behavior in mental health settings can be challenging and is a necessary part of being a health care provider (Berring, Pedersen, & Buus, 2016). If the situation is not handled well, patient and staff injuries can occur. A well thought out de-escalation plan and having a process in place is valuable. Having a range of psychosocial interventions that are focused on redirecting patients can help calm them down. The important aspects of de-escalating are being familiar with the patient, understanding the situation, knowing yourself, and having the knowledge of how to communicate in such a situation. Unfortunately, there are not many studies that have explored how staff and patients experience de-escalation methods and further research is needed in this very relevant area of health care.
Lack of accommodations serves as an additional culprit of discrimination for the mentally ill in the workplace, as well. The Mercury News reported that a 54-year-old woman “was fired from her sales job in March 2013 when her boss said the time she took off for medical appointments — which included visits to her therapist — prevented her from meeting her quotas.” A 33-year-old man interviewing for a position as a personal trainer at a gym decided to be “open about his bipolar disorder” and informed the interviewer of his condition because he wanted to be “an honest employee and figured they were going to find out eventually” (The Mercury News). The response? The interviewer told him, “We don’t have time for that.” Due to a lack of understanding
This is a very interesting in an article in regards to mental illness. James did everything correctly by notifying his supervisor about being stressed out, overwhelmed and need some assistance with mental impairment. Unfortunately, the supervisor failed to offer to counsel or redirect him to Human Resources for further assistance. In fact, the employee did the right thing by filing a lawsuit under ADA and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 means that, as long as the applicant or employee is otherwise qualified for the position, with or without reasonable accommodation, the employer is prohibited from making any adverse employment decision solely on a basis of the disability.
Our text outlines a particularly extreme case in which “a 17 year employee with no record of violence challenged his plant manager to let the employees talk to a union organizer. The following day the employer notified the local sheriff that this employee was threatening workers so the sheriff’s deputies surrounded him at gunpoint on his way to work and forcibly took him to the local hospital. Based on what the employer told the sheriff, the employee was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. He was held for two weeks against his will and forcibly injected with anti-psychotic drugs until a lawyer could obtain his release. This happened in 1999, in South Carolina.” (McGraw-Hill, p. 248) Reading that is a real eye-opener to how serious this subject can get.
Developing a plan of action to defuse an individual immediately upon hearing about the violent behaviors. Zero Tolerance policy is key in prohibiting any kind of violence or threat and to advise termination for any acts of violence. Employees need to be notified of the policy and employers should make sure that they review the policy and sign to acknowledge it. Training should also be implemented in order to teach supervisors and employees in detection, reporting, and prevention of workplace violence. “It is important to instill a sense of responsibility in employees for preventing violence, and teach them to recognize the signs of potential or actual violence and to take appropriate action such as defusing or reporting it” (http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/labor_law/meetings/2008/ac2008/056.authcheckdam.pdf). Threat assessment team is another option in decreasing workplace violence by including an individual from human resources, security, EEO, decision-makers management, and unions. The team evaluates the risk of an individual, implement a confidential reporting center for complaints of workplace violence, and encourage employees to report incidents.
(Hales et al., 2016) The researcher discussed that they looked into their crimes, and labeled them violent and nonviolent, and certain mental illnesses can be linked to violent tendencies, it can be part of their symptoms. If the
Individuals with mental illness are a high risk population that are often targets of violence and discrimination. Individuals with mental illness are mostly vulnerable to violent crimes such as rape, assault, robbery and murder. The major reason for the susceptibility to violent crimes is the impairment of cognitive functions, which is a common symptom of mental illness. The symptoms related to mental illness including: poor problems solving skills and confused thought processes can threaten their ability to identify dangerous situations and protect themselves. In addition, individuals with mental illnesses often have underlying problems such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and substance abuse.
Employment-at-will is a law that stipulate that as long as a employee is not been discriminated he or she can loose their job and any given time. This paper aims to analyze 8 different scenarios and determine whatever or not an employ can lose his or her job based in some behaviors, actions, or inactions that had lead to a somewhat hostile, aggressive, and even disrespectful work environment. At the same time the paper will address the importance of whistleblower police for any organization. While the employment-at-will allows employers to terminate their staff at any moment, at the same time it protect the staff from any type of discrimination.
An employee has rights and protection against harassment and discrimination because of factors such as (but not limited to) age, gender, marital status, civil status, religious beliefs, race, disability, or by being a member of the traveller community.