Preventing Occupational Violence Isn’t a Resilience Problem
- Tenneile Manenti
- Jan 26
- 4 min read
It’s a Systems, Governance, and Leadership Obligation
Occupational Violence and Aggression (OVA) is often framed as a frontline challenge—something to be managed with de-escalation skills, personal resilience, or “better communication.”
That framing is not only outdated.
It’s legally risky, psychologically unsafe, and strategically short-sighted.
When organisations respond to OVA by training individuals to “cope better,” they quietly shift responsibility away from where it belongs: systems, governance, leadership, and organisational design.
This blog is a deliberate reframe.
Because OVA is not a behavioural inconvenience.
It is a foreseeable psychosocial hazard with the potential to cause real harm—and under contemporary WHS legislation, it must be treated as such.
Occupational Violence & Aggression (OVA) Is a Systems Failure — Not a Frontline One
From a risk perspective, OVA emerges when work design, environments, processes, and leadership decisions intersect poorly.
Common contributors include:
Poor service design or workflow bottlenecks
Under-resourced roles or unrealistic performance demands
Ambiguous escalation pathways
Inadequate staffing, supervision, or recovery support
Cultural normalisation of abuse (“it’s just part of the job”)
None of these sit within the control of a single employee.
And yet, we routinely ask frontline workers to absorb the risk—through emotional labour, vigilance, and self-regulation—while the system that generates the exposure remains untouched.
That’s not resilience.
That’s risk displacement.
The Neuroscience: Why This Approach Backfires
From a brain-based lens, repeated exposure to threat, aggression, or unpredictability activates the amygdala–HPA axis stress response.
When this becomes chronic:
Cognitive flexibility drops
Emotional regulation capacity narrows
Memory encoding shifts toward threat bias
Recovery takes longer after incidents
In practical terms, this means:
More errors
Reduced decision quality
Lower reporting
Higher turnover
Slower return-to-work outcomes
Expecting individuals to “self-manage” this load ignores how nervous systems actually work.
Systems create exposure.
Brains respond accordingly.
Best Practice Occupational Violence Prevention Starts With the Hierarchy of Controls
Effective OVA prevention mirrors best practice risk management—because that’s exactly what it is.
1. Design & Elimination (Most Effective)
Rethink service models, layouts, and workflows
Remove known triggers and pressure points
Redesign roles that carry repeated uncontrolled exposure
2. Engineering & Environmental Controls
Physical layout, visibility, escape routes
Technology, alarms, secure entry points
Safe staffing ratios and supervision structures
3. Administrative Controls
Clear definitions of what counts as OVA
Reporting pathways that are simple, trusted, and consistent
Governance structures that review data—not just incidents
4. Training (Least Effective When Used Alone)
De-escalation skills support systems
They do not replace them
When training is the primary control, organisations are already behind.
Governance: Where Most Organisations Get This Wrong
In our work, the same gaps appear repeatedly:
Vague definitions that minimise harm
Under-reporting because nothing changes after reports
Data without learning loops
Leaders unsure how to respond or support recovery
No accountability at executive or board level
OVA becomes invisible—not because it isn’t happening, but because systems aren’t designed to see it.
Under psychosocial risk legislation, that invisibility is not a defence.
OVA and Psychosocial Risk Obligations
Across Australian jurisdictions, psychosocial hazards—including exposure to aggression and violence—must be:
Identified
Assessed
Controlled
Reviewed
This aligns directly with international best practice guidance, including ISO principles developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 45003).
Critically, legislation does not support a model where:
“Frontline staff are trained, therefore the risk is managed.”
If harm is foreseeable—and OVA almost always is—then leaders, executives, and officers hold responsibility for ensuring controls exist before exposure occurs.
A Simpler Way Forward: Start With the 3W of Human Performance™ Lens
Rather than overwhelming organisations with complexity, we start small and strategic:
Work
Where does aggression emerge in workflows, demand cycles, or decision points?
Workplace
What environmental, cultural, or system factors amplify risk?
Worker
What support, recovery, and follow-up occurs after exposure?
The 3W of Human Performance™ shows how occupational violence is shaped by work design and systems — not individual resilience.
This is prevention that respects reality—not heroics.
Recovery Is Not Optional
OVA doesn’t end when the incident ends.
Without structured recovery:
Psychological injury risk increases
Trust in leadership erodes
Reporting declines further
Best-practice organisations embed:
Early support pathways
Leader-led recovery conversations
Clear follow-up expectations
Recovery is not a soft add-on.
It is a control measure.
Where This Leaves HR and WHS Leaders
If OVA prevention in your organisation relies primarily on:
De-escalation training
Individual coping strategies
Informal leader judgement
Then the risk is not controlled—it’s simply carried by your people.
And increasingly, regulators are asking:
Why were systems not addressed first?
A Practical Call to Action
If this resonates, start with a structured, co-designed systems review.
A facilitated OVA prevention mapping session—using UX and human-performance principles—can:
Identify system-level risk points
Clarify definitions and reporting expectations
Strengthen governance and learning loops
Align leaders, HR, and WHS around shared accountability
This is exactly how our OVA Prevention Program and 3W of Human Performance™ framework are designed to work—practical, defensible, and grounded in how work actually happens.
Want Support?
Workplace OVA prevention consulting
Systems-based training for HR, WHS, leaders, and employees
Telehealth recovery and psychological support
Get in touch to design prevention at the source—not at the sharp end.
3W of Human Performance™ is a proprietary framework developed by Mind Logistics – Psychology & Performance.
This article forms part of the Workplace Emotional Bruises series—stories and insights that explore the quieter psychological impacts of work, particularly in high-pressure environments where the emotional load is real, but rarely spoken about.
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