The Ways In Which a Disgruntled Employee Presents a Security Risk
Employer-employee relationships are complicated. Employees sometimes lose their cool with their peers and sometimes with their employers and it comes out in all forms of destructive behavior. When reprimanded or even when they’re terminated, employees can go on vandalistic rampages that present a major threat to the workplace and the people occupying it.
Statistics point out that crime in the workplace costs businesses $50 billion a year. These statistics include instances of fraud, corporate espionage or even straight out vandalism. Irrespective of what the form of damage is, the fact of the matter is that disgruntled employees can present a huge risk to their employers.
Understanding Employee Psychology
As with all humans, employee reactions depend on their emotional states. Interestingly, it’s not only the disgruntled employee who presents these threats to the employer; research indicates that only half of all instances of deviant behavior in the workplace come from emotional distress. If people can act out to harm the company on mere whim, then it’s only inevitable that someone might just act out destructively when emotions are running high.
Considering this inevitability, it makes sense that employers thoroughly understand the risks presented by a disgruntled employee. Armed with this knowledge, employers can develop management strategies and implement security measures which can pre-empt or at the very least contain these threats. Common ways that employees can compromise your security system integrity include:
Physical Altercations
Back in 2017, an estimated 5,147 cases of fatal workplace injuries were reported throughout the United States. Nearly 10% of these injuries were the result of physical altercations that took place between employees or employers and employees. These numbers are rather alarming especially when you wonder how many fights break out in the workplace, which don’t lead to a fatality.
Promoting Anti-Employer Sentiment
Sometimes disgruntles employees can band together to foster hostility in the workplace which might lead to instances of insubordination or outright physical violence between coworkers. These need to be stamped out before they begin to pose a greater liability to the company than they already do.
Vandalism
Disgruntled employees are less likely to be concerned about company property. When antagonized, these individuals would direct their anger toward office property, employer’s personal property and perhaps even their co-worker’s properties.
Disclosing Sensitive Information
Data leaks represent a huge cost risk of about $1.1 million per annum to US companies. Nearly 40% of these can be traced back to employee negligence or malice in response to some workplace conflict. These leaks can set companies back by years for harming their organizational integrity and service provision capabilities.
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