Welcome to a long overdue newsletter - mostly due to my negligence. I hope this New Year has been a good one so far for you. 2018 was a busy year for us. Given the well-publicized increase in incidents of violence in the workplace and other settings, many companies are looking closely at their Workplace Violence Response and Prevention program to either improve it, or, in many cases, create one.
Violence is not an isolated act that occurs out of nowhere, but rather, is a result of a
process. Generally, an event involving an act of violence is due to 1) a failure to recognize the developing risk early enough, 2) a failure to manage it effectively once it is recognized, and/or 3) the lack of preparedness, in terms of the organization's readiness when these issues arise (as they inevitably will).
More succinctly, any successful program has to provide the organization with the capacity to effectively:
1) Identify,
2) Respond and
3)Prevent.
Identify
We now better understand the process by which these events can evolve to their tragic conclusions. There always exists a history of recognizable behaviors and events, which could have been effectively managed more safely and with less cost, if addressed early enough.
The first critical step is to be able to identify those individuals who are at risk. The earlier, the better. Tragic cases of workplace violence have occurred because managers either a) were not made aware of high-risk indicators early enough, and/or b) did not effectively respond when notified.
The obvious solution to that is providing your managers and the general employee population with the capability to recognize potential high-risk behaviors (not just "warning signs") and to report (not just ignore) them. Your employees' participation in this process is critical; an effective response cannot otherwise occur.
Respond
Once a potential risk has been identified, the organization should undergo a defined process to ensure that any potential threat is carefully assessed and managed, without defaulting to a quickly considered response that could actually escalate the danger.
There is no recipe book of responses that are applicable to all circumstances. Each situation is different and is driven by its own set of critical factors that should be carefully considered before formulating and executing a response plan. This process ideally should be overseen by the company's trained, internal
Threat Management Team, and in consultation
with a Threat Assessment Professional when necessary.
Prevent
To accomplish the above, the organization should consider the long-term, and establish a comprehensive Workplace Violence Prevention Program. This will ensure that these high-risk situations are consistently identified early, so that the organization will consistently and effectively respond, to ensure employee safety.
We have found that there are three key ingredients to any such program:
- Workplace Violence Policy. Does your organization have a clear, established policy in place that commits the organization and which clearly guides employees and managers as to their respective responsibilities?
- A Threat Management Team. Most everyone in this field advocates for the creation and training of an internal multi-disciplinary team, who will assume the decision-making responsibilities during the organization's management of high-risk situations. This team needs to be capable of overseeing the response process and knowing when to call in professional resources when necessary.
- Employee Awareness. It is absolutely critical that there be some kind of communication and training delivered at 3 different levels of the organization, each of which have a certain level of responsibility to recognize and appropriately report or respond to these situations: 1) the general employee population, 2) supervisors and managers, and 3) those identified as "critical personnel" (typically human resource managers, legal, security and upper management).
If we can provide any assistance to you in any part of your program development or case management, please feel free to contact us at any time.
