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George Cassidy, Ph.D. Workplace Violence Prevention Ethics, Fairness and Diversity |
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Dr. Cassidy is an Urban Sociologist and Demographer with a special interest in the structure of organizations, particularly workplace settings. He has a unique perspective for understanding and confronting verbal and physical violence in the workplace. Rather than look for the motivation for workplace violence in the psychological makeup of the individual, Dr. Cassidy believes that it is the structure of the workplace itself the manner in which work is organized that sets people off. While key organizational elements are those with which most managers are familiar employee compensation and benefits, the scheduling and pace of work, chain of command issues, and grievance procedures in the end it all boils down to three important areas: 1) The type and perceived sincerity of ethical behavior modeled by senior management 2) The perceived fairness of workplace guidelines and 3) The perceived sincerity of tolerance for diversity, particularly diverse thinking It is true that some people have a higher threshold for these sorts of issues and their outcomes than others, but at root workplace violence is a structural issue not a psychological one. In many cases the types of fixes that some companies employ such as psychological screening and physical security systems actually work against the desired end result by producing an atmosphere of suspicion, mistrust, and fear. Although no amount of psychological testing or armed security will prevent a determined individual from acting out, workplaces where ethical behavior, a good-faith effort at fairness, and tolerance for diverse thinking are present are those settings least likely to experience workplace violence. If a company has a workplace violence prevention program in place, Dr. Cassidy highly recommends that the company retain an outside agency to evaluate its effectiveness. Dr. Cassidy's Educational Background: Ph.D. Sociology/Demography, Brown University, 1988 M.A. Social Science, University of Chicago, 1973 B.A. Anthropology, Colorado State University, 1971 |
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