A recent survey conducted by British Crime Survey (BCS) reveals alarming figures about the amount of violence and threats faced by British workers. During the year 2008-2009, there were over 305,000 threats and 321,000 violent attacks faced by the British workers.

According to 2006 Fit3 employee survey, over 16% of workers have been threatened with violence in the past three months. About 67% of these workers have been threatened more than once and 66% of them personally knew the individual who was threatening them.

Over 33% of such incidents go unreported and are not brought to the management’s notice. The most common reason for not informing about these incidents is that the worker in question wishes to deal with the situation on his own. Fourteen percent of the workers do not trust the management to provide any kind of aid. Twenty three percent of the workers revealed that there are no special mechanisms or processes laid down by the company to protect them from violence and threats.

The RIDDOR survey reported 6,160 injuries in 2008-09 which is slightly less than 6,315 injuries in 2007-08. Though it is difficult to predict a trend, recent surveys seem to reiterate the fact that companies should have some safety policy in place to protect the workers from such violence.