You cannot reengineer unless you re-humanize. Leadership has to recognize what the limits are. Lisa Teems, who heads the Health and Human Services Department's workplace violence task force, says her organization has changed in recent years. It's not only downsizing, it's shifted responsibilities. People are asked to do more with less.
Morale is bad and that contributes to irritability.
Recognizing that stress can escalate into other problems, some agencies have begun accounting for it in their anti-violence plans. The Centers for Disease Control, for example, has a violence prevention policy that calls on supervisors to be sensitive to workplace stress and consider changes to alleviate it. At Disproportionate Risk Simply easing federal workers' stress won't eradicate the violence they face. The April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, subsequent bomb threats and antigovernment plots, along with growing danger from angry customers and criminals show federal employees are at increasing risk of violence from the people they serve. The American Society for Public Administration acknowledged as much in July, when it passed a resolution citing growing risks to public workers from street crime and family violence, domestic and international terrorism, increased conflict among employees and between employees and clients, and negative attitudes toward government held by extremist groups and large numbers of the general public.