Anyone can see via mainstream media, social media like Facebook, Twitter and others, that there is a devolution of social civility happening in real time in our nation. Anger management is barely more than a now-syndicated TV series title; it exists as a concept only in the most responsible households and social groups. From coast to coast and even in the “heartland”, conflict management is becoming a nearly lost moral and behavioral construct. Society suffers, and with it, the once-benign refuge of “the workplace” as well.

This cultural shift spells trouble for small and large employers alike. In the past five years alone, news consumers can remember stabbings, shootings, fisticuff brawls and all manner of other violence occurring between workplace associates, between associates and customers, and even some involving business owners or managers and disgruntled or mentally unstable former associates bent on settling a score.