About the process
The COs project
Step 2: Identifying the risk factors in the workplace
FORMING AN OVERVIEW
Before developing action plans and implementing measures to reduce violence, it was necessary to identify specific risk factors related to the organization of work in each of the facilities.
The risk factors were identified in TWO STEPS:
A) EXAMINATION OF PRIOR DATA (BEFORE 2004)
Statistical data collected in 2001 (Malenfant et al., 2001)provided a picture of correctional officers’ perceptions of their health in general and their health at work, and of their exposure rates to work constraints and workplace violence.
Interviews and discussions held in 2001 and 2003 (54 individual interviews and 9 group discussions) served to:
provide an understanding of the context in which certain risk factors developed in the workplace, and insight into how they were experienced on a daily basis by the correctional officers;
Example: the discussions and interviews revealed the degree to which the massive influx of new personnel undermined the groups and generated numerous tensions in the groups.
improve understanding of the particular characteristics of the prison environment and the informal rules that prevail there, but also of the conditions under which prisons are evolving and the changes they have to contend with;
Example: redefinition of the mission of penitentiaries, increasing presence of female employees, growing numbers and complexity of inmate population, etc.
identify concrete problems in management practices in the prison environment, thus facilitating the identification of action targets.
B) START OF THE PROBLEM EVALUATION PROCESS (2004)
When the overall intervention process was launched, a questionnaire was distributed to the correctional officers, allowing the researchers to:
- measure the prevalence of the psychosocial work constraints and psychological health problems, as well as the presence of violence in the organization;
- gain a better understanding of the workforce and its perspective of the actual work and of industrial relations within the organization;
- • sound out employees’ opinions about concrete problems in the organization and possible solutions, by means of a checklist they could complete and add to.
This questionnaire also provided a first measurement, for use in subsequent evaluation (see step 5), of the impact of the interventions on the psychosocial work constraints, the workers’ health, and the decrease in violence in the workplace. .
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You can refer to the questionnaire, which is appended to the final report.
In all instances, ALL the correctional officers were invited to participate in the interviews and discussions and to complete the questionnaires. This data collection process led to the identification of specific problems such as the following:
- an inadequate recruitment and training process
- an inadequate or inoperative employee evaluation system
- the absence of consultation/transparency on the part of management
- a general lack of recognition of correctional officers
- missing or inadequate work tools
- a lack of communication among co-workers and with superiors
- a general climate of mistrust among the correctional staff