The total health care costs of domestic violence are estimated in the hundreds of millions each year, much of which is paid for by the employer.

Domestic violence costs employers at least $3 to $5 billion dollars each year in lost days of work and reduced productivity.

Domestic violence in the workplace affects not only the person directly experiencing the abuse, but it can also have a profound effect on the personal and professional lives and productivity of co-workers. And there is, of course, no way to put a price on the emotional, physical, and psychological pain a victim of domestic violence lives with 24-hours a day.

How Does Domestic Violence Impact the Workplace?

There are 30,000 to 40,000 incidents of domestic abuse in the workplace each year.

96 percent of employees who are victims of domestic violence report some type of workplace problem as a direct result of their abuse.

60 percent are often late for work due to domestic violence.

54 percent have missed at least 3 full days of work per month.

Work performance suffers for 70 percent.

60 percent are reprimanded for diminished performance.

30 percent are fired.

Domestic violence is too often ignored or tolerated as a "private matter." Victims may feel isolated and humiliated and they may believe that the violence is somehow their fault. Such feelings can make it difficult for abused women and men to seek help to end the violence in their lives.

They may also feel they are trapped in a violent situation because of financial pressures, few housing options, concerns about providing for their children, and fear of reprisals from their abusive partners.

There are ways employers and co-workers of domestic violence victims can recognize the signs of domestic violence and offer effective help.

Intervention Tools:

Offer domestic violence awareness training to all employees.

Enact policies regarding domestic violence as part of your Employee Assistance Program and your employee handbook.

Place informational posters and brochures throughout the workplace.

Recognize that your staff may include victims of domestic violence or perpetrators. Be prepared to both refer victims to the support services they need and to refer batterers to intervention programs. Your local crisis center can help you find both.

If You are the Supervisor of an Employee Who is Experiencing Domestic Violence:

Be aware of unusual absences or behavior and take note of bruises or emotional distress.

Contact the human resources manager to discuss concerns, resources available, and ways to support the employee, e.g. safety planning, employee counseling, flexible scheduling, and security measures.

Contact your local domestic violence crisis center for information on resources available to those experiencing domestic violence.

Discuss who is appropriate to speak with the employee. Respect her/his wishes, privacy, and concerns.

Provide your safety managers with a photo of the abuser and a copy of any restraining orders if available.

Assist the employee in documenting all incidents with the batterer that occur in the workplace and elsewhere.

Take action against domestic violence by encouraging your employees to volunteer for a local domestic violence program, by keeping a supply of posters and brochures prominently displayed in the workplace, and by making it clear in company policies and publications that you will fully support employees experiencing domestic violence and have zero tolerance for abusers.

If you are the Co-worker of Someone Experiencing Domestic Violence:

Express concern and willingness to listen, be supportive, and respect his/her privacy.

Offer support by listening. When an individual is ready, she/he will confide.

If a co-worker confides in you, encourage communication with the human resources manager and a supervisor.

Contact your local domestic violence crisis center for information on resources available to employees experiencing domestic violence.

If you witness an incident at work, contact your safety manager and the police immediately. Make sure that the incident is documented.

If YOU are Experiencing Domestic Violence:

Notify you supervisor and the human resources manager about your circumstances.

Discuss options available to you, e.g. flexible scheduling, safety precautions, employee assistance benefits.

Request that all information be treated with confidence to provide for your safety, including your working hours, location, and home and work phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail addresses.

Contact your local crisis center for more information on safety planning.

Facts and Statistics on Domestic Violence in the Workplace:

In addition to having devastating impact on victims and their families, domestic violence is costly to communities and businesses. Domestic violence adversely affects critical workplace issues including safety and security, employee health care costs, job performance and productivity.

In October 2000, the NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence joined with Governor Jeanne Shaheen and business leaders from around the state to raise awareness about domestic violence as a workplace issue through the National Corporate Citizenship Initiative. Since that time, the Coalition has collaborated with state government to provide education and outreach to thousands of state employees and their supervisiors. The successful partnership has led the Coalition to enhance its outreach efforts to private employers by hiring a coordinatior for the NH Workplace Initiative on Domestic Violence. The Initiative will work to strengthen links between employers, advocates and other community leaders with the goal of creating new pathways of support for victims fo domestic violence and their families.

Sixty-six percent (66%) of senior corporate executives believe their company's financial performance would benefit from addressing the issue of domestic violence among their employees. (Roper Starch Worldwide for Liz Claiborne, Addressing Domestic Violence: A Corporate Response, New York, 1994:9).

The total health care costs of family violence are estimated in the hundreds of millions each year, much of which is paid for by the employer. (Pennsylvania Blue Shield Institute, Social Probles and Rising Health Care Costs in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania: 1992: 3-5).

Homicide is by far the most frequent fatality women workers experience at work. In seventeen percent (17%) of these homicides, the alleged assailants were current or former husbands or boyfriends. (Fatal Workplace Injuries in 1994: A Collection of Data and Analysis, Report 908, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, July 1996.)

Significant numbers of employers said domestic violence has a harmful effect on their company's productivity forty-nine percent (49%), attendance forty-seven percent(47%), and increases in insurance and medical costs forty-four percent(44%). Eighty percent (80%) of respondents said that domestic violence effects employees from all walks of life and effects all aspects of their lives. (Roper Starch Worldwide for Liz Claiborne, Addressing Domestic Violence: A Corporate Response, New York: 1004: 9).

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of women who experienced domestic violence report the abuse had an impact on their work performance in the form of lateness, missed work, keeping a job, or career promotions. (EDK Associates for The Body Shop, The Many Faces of Domestic Violence and It's Impact on the Workplace, New York: 1997: 2-4)

One in four American women report that they have been physically abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in there lives. Thirty percent (30%) of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year. (Domestic Violence Advertising Campaign Tracking Survey (Wave IV) conducted for the Advertising Council and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, July-October, 1996).

Seventy-four percent (74%) of employed battered women reported being harassed by their partners or husbands in the workplace either in person or over the telephone. (Today, e-mail, voicemail, and fax provide additional means of access.) (NY Victim Services Agency)

Ninety-six percent (96%) of employees who were victims of domestic violence reported some type of workplace problem as a direct result of their abuse. More than sixty percent (60%) were often late, fifty-four percent (54%) missed at least three full days of work per month, work performance suffered for seventy percent (70%) of the victims, sixty percent (60%) were reprimanded for diminished performance; and thirty percent (30%) were fired. (NY Victim Services, US Dept. of Labor).

A large majority of Employee Assistance Program providers surveyed have dealt with specific partner abuse situations in the past year, including an employee with a restraining order eighty-three percent (83%) or an employee being stalked at work by a current or former partner seventy-one percent (71%). (Issac, Nancy E., Sc.D., Corporate Sector Response to Domestic Violence, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University School of Public Health, 1997:30).