Addressing Workplace Violence

ONL holds a longstanding commitment to helping nurse leaders build and sustain healthy work environments, and ensuring nurses' well-being and safe and healthy work environments remains the top priority for nurse leaders across our region and the country. Together with our members and partners, we are working to address workplace violence both in practice and in policy. Our approach includes facilitating opportunities for ongoing learning and dialogue, sharing resources for addressing workplace violence from our members and allies in this work, and supporting our members in influencing organizational policy and state and federal legislation that improves the safety of healthcare workers.

Opportunities for Learning and Dialogue

• Winter 2022 Quarterly Meeting: Our Winter 2022 Quarterly Meeting addressed healthy work environments during the Business Meeting with a facilitated discussion by ONL President Dr. Nancy Gaden, followed by a full day of engaging content delivered by Dr. Renee Thompson, founder and CEO of The Healthy Workforce Institute.
• Spring 2023 Quarterly Meeting: Our Spring 2023 Quarterly Meeting brought together more than 100 members to take a deeper dive into current trends and discuss addressing workplace violence in policy and practice. Presenters spoke to the big picture including an evolving regulatory landscape, legislative approaches to addressing workplace violence through policy, and organizational leadership decisions that are shaping how workplace violence is addressed in practice.
• Timely Programming: In partnership with Dr. Renee Thompson's Healthy Workforce Institute, ONL continues to provide in-person, live virtual, and asynchronous online programs focused on building healthy work cultures.
• Eradicating Bullying and Incivility Self-Study eCourse
• View our upcoming program calendar

Sharing Resources for Addressing Workplace Violence

In January 2023, ONL launched a short-term Workplace Violence Task Force that brought nearly 20 members together to collaborate on this important topic with a more formal structure. Task Force members wisely advised ONL to collect and synthesize existing resources to address workplace violence and make them available to members, as there is a lot of great work happening in this space within individual organizations and across associations that should be shared and leveraged. We will continue to add to this list over time.

• AONL's Workplace Violence Prevention resources
• AHA's Hospitals Against Violence Initiative
• ENA's Workplace Violence resources
• MHA's Healthcare Safety and Violence Prevention Resource Library
• MHA's United Code of Conduct Principles
• MHA's “Workplace Violence at Massachusetts Healthcare Facilities: An Untenable Situation & A Call to Protect the Workforce"
• The Joint Commission's Workplace Violence Prevention Resources
• OSHA's Workplace Violence website

Advancing Workplace Violence Policy Across Our Member States

Across our member states, state legislatures are seeking to address workplace violence in a variety of bills, and the same is true at the federal level. While the proposed legislation varies in each instance, common themes include an intent to raise public awareness about the prevalence and impact of workplace violence in healthcare, to allocate resources to address the complex problem, and to increase accountability and penalties for people who threaten or harm healthcare workers. ONL continues to work alongside our members whose advocacy and influence are shaping these policies across the region and the country. For more information on the latest developments, visit our policy updates page.