Labor & employment attorney Mark Shank credits improved training, recognition of warning signs with safer wrokplace environment.
Despite heavily publicized incidences of workplace violence in recent months, such tragedies are actually on the decline according to federal statistics. Indeed, while stories of workplace violence have certainly grabbed the headlines lately - the Fort Hood tragedy, the San Diego bus mechanic who killed two co-workers or the unemployed man in upstate New York whose 12 shooting victims included a receptionist and a teacher - workplace violence has dropped over the last decade.

Part of the reason is that employers have learned the value of training and implementing safeguards that can prevent such tragedies. "Employers have become increasingly focused on training to recognize and report the potential for violence, while also making investments in electronic security and other safeguards," says Dallas employment attorney Mark Shank of Gruber Hurst Johansen & Hail. While the weak economy has boosted financial anxieties and stress levels, workplace homicides last year were the lowest in 16 years of tracking by the U.S. Labor Department - half the rate seen in the early 1990s - and most did not involve current or former employees. "Reporting concerns about a co-worker typically don't lead to a firing, but rather to counseling and other support programs that companies and insurers have created."